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IM South Africa 2012 – Analyzing Results

Race Conditions

This year’s IM South Africa was very slow. The adjustment was calculated at –5:49, so it was about 18 minutes slower than the 2011 race. I’m not sure what factors contributed to this, I have not heard horror stories of strong winds or too long swim courses, but the times were pretty slow even starting with the swim. (Please note that the adjustment is not influenced by the strength of the field, only by comparing expected and actual finishing times by each athlete.)

Male Results

Some of the pre race favorites didn’t start (Cunama) or made clear that they were just racing for fun (Tissink). The remaining favorite, Andi Böcherer, led after the bike, but dropped out at the 18k mark of the run, and Clemente Alonso won his first Ironman:

Rank Name Nation Actual Time Expected Time
1 Clemente Alonso-McKernan ESP 08:34:45 08:51:24
2 Cyril Viennot FRA 08:41:48 08:48:58
3 Mike Aigroz SWI 08:46:04 08:51:31
4 Markus Fachbach GER 08:57:21 08:51:43
5 Trevor Delsaut FRA 09:03:03 09:09:30
6 Petr Vabrousek CZE 09:09:57 09:02:56
7 Craig Twigg GBR 09:10:48 09:58:24
8 Sylvain Rota FRA 09:11:24 n/a
9 Kent Horner ZAF 09:14:39 09:24:02
10 Guilherme Manocchio BRA 09:20:56 08:49:15
11 Andrey Lyatskiy RUS 09:25:43 09:13:07
12 Michael Wetzel GER 09:26:33 09:21:59
13 Raynard Tissink ZAF 09:31:42 08:39:14
14 Ivan Albano BRA 09:40:30 09:26:11
15 Georg Swoboda AUT 09:42:51 08:56:35

As usual, a TOP 3 finish required to race faster than your predicted time and deliver a good performance – not much of a chance anymore to just show up, go through the motions and finish on the podium.

Female Results

On the women’s side, Natascha Badmann had a bad swim but a great bike and run and managed to overtake her countrywomen Simone Braendli for her fourth win in South Africa:

Rank Name Nation Actual Time Expected Time
1 Natascha Badmann SWI 09:47:10 09:39:30
2 Simone Braendli SWI 09:52:26 10:19:01
3 Diana Riesler GER 10:01:14 09:46:31
4 Dianne Mcewan ZAF 10:07:55 n/a
5 Susan Dietrich GER 10:08:02 09:47:28
6 Virginia Berasategui ESP 10:13:00 09:44:23
7 Emi Sakai JPN 10:28:03 n/a
8 Anne Basso FRA 10:33:12 10:32:12
9 Nina Pekerman ISR 10:34:24 n/a
10 Jacqui Gordon USA 10:41:13 10:17:28
11 Claire Horner ZAF 10:50:53 10:46:25
12 Kathrin Walther GER 11:30:13 n/a
13 Caroline Koll ZAF 11:56:21 10:52:04

Congratulations to Natscha – even with her having the best pre-race rating, I didn’t think she had another IM win in her. By winning, she became the oldest female winner of an Ironman at 45 years, 4 months and 16 days. Previously, Fernanda Keller had that record with her win in IM Brazil 2008 at the age of 44 years, 7 months and 21 days. I wish I was that fast!

1 thought on “IM South Africa 2012 – Analyzing Results”

  1. Hey THorsten,

    Seen your comment about weather conditions for IMSA 2012… well – they were terrible. Swim was long (over 4km), sea was rough and cold, there was rain and 60km/h winds for the bike…It was a brutal day!!

    Maybe 20-30 slower for the pros – and more for age groupers!

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