As per usual, you can find additional information on the participants in the detail post.
Previous Results
IM Korea in Jeju hasn’t been an official race between 2008 and 2010 (then it was just the “Jeju International Triathlon”), but it has been before that and now it’s back on the list of Kona qualifiers. It’s the slowest course I’ve been looking at so far, with a course rating of -6:22. At least some of it has to do with inaccurate courses (one year the best swim time was barely under an hour), but from what I’ve heard the course really is quite hard.
Most people remember the last race in 2007 because of the women’s winner – it was Chrissie Wellington’s first IM. She won in 9:54, qualified for Kona and the rest is history. On the men’s side, we have Raynard Tissink at the top with a winning time of 9:08.
Male Participants
There are not too many athletes on the start list, and German pro Andreas Venhorst tops the ratings:
Rank Name Nation Expected Time Rating Rank 1 Andreas Venhorst GER 09:22:28 09:05:52 139 2 Bevan McKinnon NZL 09:26:29 09:09:46 154 3 Balazs Csoke HUN 09:29:37 09:12:49 177 4 Justin Granger AUS 09:30:49 09:13:59 186 5 Hiroyuki Nishiuchi JPN 09:38:30 09:21:26 250 6 Eneko Elosegui ESP 10:04:25 09:46:35 414 7 Nobuyuki Tanaka JAP n/a unrated n/a 8 Jan Rehula CZE n/a unrated n/a
Andreas has just two results in my database (from 2008 and 2009), so with quite a few athletes close by, he’s not really a sure bet for the win. My pick would be Justin Granger or one of the relatively unknown Asian athletes who always race well in their “local” race. One more thing I noticed: Balazs Csoke seems to have registered for all IMs, he’s also on the start list in Austria on the same day and in IM Germany two weeks later.
Female Participants
On the female side, we have solid Japanese athlete Emi Shiono topping the ranking:
Rank Name Nation Expected Time Rating Rank 1 Emi Shiono JPN 10:28:26 10:09:54 106 2 Hillary Biscay USA 10:33:57 10:15:15 126 3 Maki Nishiuchi JPN 10:39:52 10:20:59 144 4 Jocelyn Wong USA 11:01:42 10:42:11 195 5 Yasuko Miyazaki JPN 11:09:58 10:50:12 210
Most eyes will be on Hillary Biscay who is trying to get another IM win under her belt. I hope she found some renewed spring in her step – after all this is only her second Ironman this year!