Race Conditions
This year was the first time that an Ironman was held in Texas. Even with the hot and humid weather the course turned out to be pretty quick, with an adjustment of 15:34. Only IM Florida (about 100 seconds) an Challenge Roth (a bit more than 5 minutes) are quicker courses.
Male Results
Tim O’Donnell had a great first IM race, and it took an excellent performance by Eneko Llanos who won the race. Luke Bell (coming in third) was also in the mix for quite a while and seemed to be really happy with his performance.
Rank Name Nation Actual Time Expected Time 1 Eneko Llanos ESP 08:08:20 08:13:43 2 Timothy ODonnell USA 08:09:50 n/a 3 Luke Bell AUS 08:12:22 08:41:56 4 Jan Raphael GER 08:20:41 08:34:59 5 Jozsef Major HUN 08:24:17 08:36:35 6 Axel Zeebroek BEL 08:28:07 08:51:23 7 Justin Daerr USA 08:29:44 08:45:30 8 Patrick Evoe USA 08:32:29 09:06:58 9 Petr Vabrousek CZE 08:37:59 08:46:04 10 Torsten Abel GER 08:38:40 08:44:02 11 Mike Neill CAN 08:39:40 08:46:28 12 Sergio Marques PRT 08:48:57 08:52:51 13 Luke McKenzie AUS 08:52:07 08:34:03 14 Matthew Russell USA 09:03:06 09:13:00 15 Michael Lovato USA 09:03:49 08:43:51 16 Raul Furtado 09:09:39 09:07:49 17 Brad Seng USA 09:15:13 09:02:47 18 Sebastian Pedraza ITA 09:16:38 08:56:44 19 Allan Villanueva 09:26:46 n/a 20 Hirotsugu Kuwabara 09:55:29 n/a 21 John Flanagan USA 10:02:23 09:46:28 22 Steven Osborne GBR 10:02:23 09:54:28 23 Jerome Bresson CAN 10:02:23 09:45:26 24 Daniel Schmoll 13:07:28 09:03:29 Expected time is based on athlete’s rating (prior to race) and race conditions.
A couple of highly rated athletes had to drop out (e.g Chris Lieto) or didn’t even start (haven’t seen a mention of Rutger Beke). As usual, the first half of the field had good races, while the second half was struggling – even some big names such as Luke McKenzie and Michael Lovato.
Female Results
Cat Morrison posted a great result – except for Chrissie Wellington’s time in South Africa it was the fastest IM time this year. Her 8:57 (adjusted to 9:13) lead to her new rating of 9:33 which also allowed her to move into the TTR Top 10.
Rank Name Nation Actual Time Expected Time 1 Catriona Morrison GBR 08:57:51 09:24:23 2 Kelly Williamson USA 09:07:54 09:36:38 3 Sofie Goos BEL 09:12:53 09:34:04 4 Tyler Stewart USA 09:13:13 09:30:40 5 Tine Deckers BEL 09:19:27 09:33:01 6 Kim Loeffler USA 09:20:04 09:36:40 7 Desiree Ficker USA 09:24:09 10:19:44 8 Jacqui Gordon USA 09:27:20 10:03:30 9 Joanna Lawn NZL 09:32:19 09:15:56 10 Lauren Harrison USA 09:46:22 09:55:54 11 Michaela Giger SWI 09:58:43 10:19:06 12 Maki Nishiuchi JPN 10:06:29 10:06:38 13 Sharon Schmidt-Mongrain 10:09:03 n/a 14 Miranda Alldritt CAN 10:19:12 10:48:13 15 Dede Griesbauer USA 10:28:23 09:35:57 16 Caroline Smith 10:35:06 n/a 17 Jocelyn Wong USA 10:50:50 10:24:01 Expected time is based on athlete’s rating (prior to race) and race conditions.
Almost the full women’s field managed to post faster times than predicted – maybe they were aided just a little bit by the large men’s field? The ratings before the race were close enough and the race proved to be about as exciting as I was hoping for. Desiree Ficker managed to turn in a solid time after a string of DNFs and not so good result – and she still only managed to come in 7th!
I’m sure that Joanna Lawn and Dede Griesbauer were not happy with the way their races turned out. Pre race favorite Jo Lawn was about 15 minutes slower than predicted and was beaten by eight women racers. Dede Griesbauer was almost one hour slower than her rating would have predicted – I’m afraid she’ll have problems to qualify for Kona this year.