Ironman New Zealand 2016 – Analyzing Results

Race Conditions

The 2016 conditions were quite favorable for fast times, hardly any wind, cloudy on the bike and not too hot on the run – probably the best they have been in recent years (adjustment of 9:06, new course rating of 5:36). There have been some very fast times on the bike: The old women’s course record was 5:01 which was beaten by five athletes – Lucy Gossage now has the new record of 4:51:39. There has also been a new male bike course record of 4:22:31 by Dougal Allen, improving Bevan Docherty’s old record by more than twelve minutes! We’ve also seen a new run course record by Matt Hanson (2:41:20).

But it is interesting to note that while the winners had good bike times (still under the old records), they left enough in the tank for some great runs as well – Cam Brown running the second fastest 2:44 marathon and Meredith Kessler running a new run PR and run course record of 3:06:03. Getting the mix right allowed both of them to post new overall course records of 8:07:58 by Cam (improving Bevan’s  8:15 from 2013) and 8:56:08 by Meredith – the first sub-9 in Taupo, improving on last year’s 9:05.

Male Race Results

As usual Dylan McNeice was leading after the swim, but he struggled a bit after racing in Wanaka two weeks ago, eventually DNF’ing on the run. On the bike a large front group of more than ten athletes formed, only Cyril Viennot managed to build a bit of a lead into T2. Some slower swimmers were able to cut down the distance to the front group, so the race was wide open at the start of the run.

Callum Millward was pushing the pace early on, and only Cam Brown was able to stay with him. Cam was able to build a gap around the 30k mark but for a long time Callum stayed within a minute of Cam. Cam proved that he perfectly judged his effort, winning for the 12th time at IM New Zealand with a new course record – what a legend!

Second place went to Joe Skipper who had some gas left in the tank for the last 10k. After fighting for the win for most of the day, Callum Millward had to be content with third place. Fourth place went to the fastest runner of the day, Matt Hanson who posted a new run course record of 2:41:20 – faster than all the 2015 IM marathons! As usual Matt Russell also had a good run, allowing him to move from 11th place in T2 into 5th place.

Female Race Results

IM rookie Lauren Brandon had the fastest swim – her 46:00 moved her well into the leading male Pros. While she was quicker than the course record swim of Monica Byrn (nee Kaplan), Lauren wasn’t able to finish the race and couldn’t claim a new course record.

Meredith Kessler was second out of the water and quickly took the lead on the bike. The lead quickly extended to around 8 minutes but the fast bike riders Lucy Gossage and Laura Siddall worked to cut it down to about two minutes in T2. But MBK quickly showed that she wasn’t ready to relinquish her grip on the New Zealand title and posted the fastest run for a sub-9 finish and new course record – her fifth consecutive win at IM New Zealand. (Her first was the shortened 2012 race.)

Behind Meredith, Laura was the best runner at the start, but then her race from two week ago caught up with her and she eventually dropped to fourth place. Second place went to Lucy Gossage who had some issues early in the run but ended up two minutes ahead of Carrie Lester who had the second best run to claim third. Amanda Stevens had another solid race with a good run in fifth place.