As per usual, you can find additional information on the participants in the detail post.
Previous Results
Germany is one of the quicker races on the IM calendar with a course rating of 12:19, but not crazy fast such as Austria or Roth, so don’t expect any record-breaking times. There were a few sub-8 results in the last years, however.
Last year’s bike course was about 3-5k longer than normal – there was some construction on the bike course, so Andreas Raelert’s winning time of 8:05 would have been close to sub-8 territory. He beat Timo Bracht and Chris McCormack by a fair margin. On the women’s side, Sandra Wallenhorst (9:04) beat Caroline Steffen by two minutes and Yvonne van Vlerken by six minutes.
Male Participants
This is one of the biggest pro fields this season – as it’s probably the last big race before the end-of-July cutoff. Faris Al-Sultan is the biggest name from the existing ratings, Marko Albert (having just raced one IM in Austria) and Cameron Brown are on the list, but I’m not sure if they’ll actually be racing on Sunday. Most of the focus will be on Michael Raelert who will debut on the IM distance. (BTW: Does anyone know where Andreas wants to qualify?!)
Rank Name Nation Expected Time Rating Rank 1 Faris Al-Sultan GER 08:16:15 08:28:03 9 2 Marko Albert EST 08:18:08 08:29:59 11 3 Cameron Brown NZL 08:19:58 08:31:51 13 4 Pedro Gomez POR 08:22:28 08:34:25 17 5 Michael Goehner GER 08:22:47 08:34:44 17 6 Patrick Vernay NCL 08:23:20 08:35:18 19 7 Jan Raphael GER 08:27:54 08:39:58 25 8 Uwe Widmann GER 08:30:20 08:42:28 31 9 Paul Amey USA 08:34:18 08:46:32 46 10 Stefan Riesen SWI 08:35:46 08:48:02 57 11 Stephan Vuckovic GER 08:36:26 08:48:43 64 12 Luke McKenzie AUS 08:37:59 08:50:18 72 13 Frank Vytrisal GER 08:43:10 08:55:36 94 14 Gudmund Snilstveit NOR 08:48:25 09:00:59 123 15 Mikel Elgezabal ESP 08:48:54 09:01:28 126 16 Simon Billeau FRA 08:50:25 09:03:02 133 17 Bert Jammaer BEL 08:50:39 09:03:16 135 18 Daniel Schmoll 08:53:48 09:06:29 147 19 Rene Goehler DEU 08:54:31 09:07:13 150 20 Balazs Csoke HUN 08:55:06 09:07:49 155 21 Alejandro Santamaria ESP 08:56:08 09:08:53 159 22 Jonathan Hotchkiss 08:57:57 09:10:44 172 23 Trevor Delsaut FRA 08:58:52 09:11:41 176 24 Thomas Hellriegel GER 08:59:26 09:12:15 181 25 Mike Schifferle SWI 09:02:06 09:14:59 201 26 Bruno Clerbout BEL 09:04:39 09:17:36 221 27 Shinya Suganuma JPN 09:05:47 09:18:46 238 28 Dirk Wijnalda NLD 09:09:10 09:22:13 262 29 Andres Castillo latorre COL 09:12:50 09:25:59 289 30 Marcel Bischof GER 09:18:16 09:31:32 316 31 Teemu Lemmettyla FIN 09:20:58 09:34:18 332 32 Horst Reichel 09:29:36 09:43:09 397 33 Erich Felbabel FRA 09:33:59 09:47:38 428 34 Sandi Ivancic SLO 09:36:15 09:49:57 440 35 Craig Twigg GBR 09:38:45 09:52:31 459 36 Matjaz Kovac SVN 09:39:17 09:53:03 461 37 Hirotsugu Kuwabara 09:50:27 10:04:29 540 38 Freddy Lampret Sou 10:11:40 10:26:13 654 39 Ivan Tejero Vazquez 10:16:26 10:31:05 672 40 Marek Nemcik SVK 11:58:29 12:15:34 805 41 Michael Raelert n/a unrated n/a 42 Marc-andre Hages n/a unrated n/a 43 George Potrebitsch n/a unrated n/a 44 Andrey Lyatskiy n/a unrated n/a 45 Per Bittner n/a unrated n/a 46 Michael Wetzel n/a unrated n/a 47 Sylvain Sudrie n/a unrated n/a
Female Participants
As on the men’s side, there is a big and strong field on the women’s side:
Rank Name Nation Expected Time Rating Rank 1 Yvonne Van Vlerken AUT 09:07:28 09:20:29 5 2 Sonja Tajsich GER 09:18:58 09:32:15 13 3 Samantha Warriner NZL 09:19:03 09:32:20 14 4 Joanna Lawn NZL 09:21:17 09:34:38 16 5 Caroline Steffen SWI 09:23:22 09:36:46 22 6 Silvia Felt GER 09:25:00 09:38:26 26 7 Heleen Bij De Vaate NLD 09:26:11 09:39:39 27 8 Tine Deckers BEL 09:26:41 09:40:09 29 9 Lucie Zelenkova ZAF 09:27:23 09:40:52 37 10 Kristin Moeller GER 09:29:41 09:43:14 41 11 Nicole Leder GER 09:34:54 09:48:34 49 12 Susan Dietrich 09:38:53 09:52:39 58 13 Mirjam Weerd NLD 09:39:50 09:53:37 62 14 Meike Krebs GER 09:42:17 09:56:08 70 15 Uli Bromme USA 09:45:59 09:59:55 75 16 Dede Griesbauer USA 09:46:49 10:00:46 77 17 Simone Benz SWI 09:52:59 10:07:05 94 18 Sarah Schuetz SWI 09:54:08 10:08:15 101 19 Desiree Ficker USA 10:06:46 10:21:11 148 20 Nicole Woysch GER 10:07:34 10:22:01 152 21 Fernanda Keller BRA 10:08:47 10:23:15 156 22 Olja Bregar 10:19:50 10:34:34 185 23 Amanda Balding USA 10:51:50 11:07:20 246 24 Saki Kubota n/a unrated n/a 25 Inka Wachter n/a unrated n/a
I expect some last minute additions to the race, but for now Yvonne Van Vlerken is the favorite. But basically anyone of the top 10 athletes can win this race, so it’ll be quite an interesting race to watch.