The next race on the IM calendar is coming up soon: IM South Africa will be held on April 10th. I’ve put together a preview for this race, based on the pro list (from early March) from their website at http://www.triangle.cc/event/default.asp?micrositeid=2. This list is almost a month old, so some changes are to be expected.
The Course
IM South Africa is medium fast race with a course rating of 10:31. It is 8 1/2 minutes faster than IM Hawaii (course rating of 1:53), but more than 15 minutes slower than Challenge Roth (course rating of 27:41). The last few years, however, were pretty quick (race handicaps of 17 to 22 minutes), so if the conditions are right, the race can be fast (comparable to typical results at IM Arizona).
The Male Field
Here are the predictions for the male pros (for more infos, see my IM South Africa details):
Rank Name Nation Expected Time Rating Rank 1 Marino Vanhoenacker BEL 08:17:19 08:33:38 8 2 Tom Lowe GBR 08:18:43 08:35:04 9 3 Michael Goehner GER 08:24:32 08:41:05 15 4 Eduardo Sturla ARG 08:27:37 08:44:16 21 5 Rutger Beke BEL 08:27:49 08:44:28 22 6 Raynard Tissink SAF 08:28:56 08:45:37 23 7 Uwe Widmann GER 08:31:00 08:47:45 29 8 Swen Sundberg GER 08:39:35 08:56:37 47 9 Jason Shortis AUS 08:39:38 08:56:40 48 10 Petr Vabrousek CZE 08:46:24 09:03:40 74 11 James Cunnama ZAF 08:48:05 09:05:24 81 12 Luke Bell AUS 08:48:52 09:06:13 84 13 Sergio Marques PRT 08:50:18 09:07:41 87 14 Bert Jammaer BEL 08:59:28 09:17:10 110 15 Patrick Wallimann SWI 09:01:03 09:18:48 123 16 Mike Schifferle SWI 09:07:32 09:25:29 161 17 Andreas Bocherer GER 09:12:47 09:30:55 184 18 Toby Radcliffe GBR 09:17:32 09:35:49 206 19 Heinrich Sickl AUT 09:28:26 09:47:05 253
Some interesting things:
- it’ll be interesting to see the race between the established Marino Vanhoenacker (with excellent results over the last 6 seasons) and the newcomer Tom Lowe (whose single results from IM Arizona last November would be good enough for a spot on the TOP 10).
- If both of them race, look for the pair of Rutger Beke and Rayard Tissink. Rutger hasn’t had too many good IM results lately, while Raynard has had a great IM Hawaii and is always racing strong in his home race. (However, Raynard is rumored to consider dropping out of the race.)
The Female Pro Field
I’ve got some predictions for the women’s field as well (again, for some previous race results, see my IM South Africa details post):
Rank Name Nation Expected Time Rating Rank 1 Chrissie Wellington GBR 08:40:49 08:57:54 1 2 Natascha Badmann SWI 09:11:38 09:29:43 5 3 Rachel Joyce GBR 09:24:11 09:42:41 16 4 Belinda Granger AUS 09:28:48 09:47:27 23 5 Eva Dollinger AUT 09:34:54 09:53:45 35 6 Martina Dogana ITA 09:40:48 09:59:51 43 7 Yvette Grice GBR 10:15:17 10:35:28 122 8 Nicole Woysch GER 10:37:44 10:58:39 153 9 Simone Benz SWI 10:55:57 11:17:28 171
Some things of note here:
- The real question for the women’s race is probably not if Chrissie is going to win but how far up in the men’s field she’s going to end up. Based on the ratings, I’m calling a TOP 10 finish, but not much higher up if the people from the pro list actually show up.
- I’m quite interested in how Natascha Badmann is going to perform: Her last posted race is more than four years ago, and she’s had some up and down years in between. If she has a solid race, she should be able to finish runner-up.
- However, Rachel Joyce and Belinda Granger are solid racers that are not too far off – and they will try to make the race for TOP3 interesting.