Fastest Times

There was a total of eleven sub-3 runs by Ironwomen this season. The fastest was by Kelly Williamson at IM Texas, Kristin Moeller had two sub-3s in Brasil and Hamburg, Lisa Roberts even had three within two months.

Best Performances

Lisa’s run at Challenge Madrid was the best run performance in 2017 – a lot of athletes struggled on the run in Madrid, but she was able to run another sub-3.

Foto: Lisa on the run at Challenge Madrid. Credit: Challenge Madrid

Even though no woman was able to break 3 hours on the Kona marathon, there are three Kona runs in the Top 10 performances.

2017 Ratings

With Mirinda Carfrae (the #1-ranked runner at the end of 2016) not racing this year and dropping from the rankings, Daniela is now also the best female runner. With their improved run ratings, Kaisa Sali and Lisa Roberts have been closing the gap to Daniela and are ranked second and third.

This post looks at the fastest times and best performances by the men in the bike leg.

Fastest Times

The 2017 season continued the trend of extremely fast bike legs. Andy Starykowicz continues his push towards the first sub-4 bike leg, his 4:01 from Texas is the fastest bike time in an Ironman – a great comeback from his horrific injuries in 2016. Tim Don’s 4:06 from Brasil is the best bike time by an athlete who went on to win the race.

Best Performances

The best bike performance was Cameron Wurf’s new bike course record in Kona – it’s pretty unusual that a Kona bike ride shows up in the fastest overall rides (previous section)!

Foto: Cam Wurf leading the bike in Kona. Credit: Ingo Kutsche

Andy Starykowicz has three of the best ten bike performances in 2017 (from Louisville, Texas and Wisconsin), Lionel Sanders has two (from Kona and his win at IM Arizona). It’s interesting to note that Cam Wurf’s 4:57 from IM Wales is the seventh best performance – even if it’s almost an hour slower than Starky’s fastest time in Texas!

2017 Ratings

With his return to Ironman Racing, Andrew Starykowicz also re-claims the #1 spot in the bike rankings. Even though he has been biking well this season, Sebi has dropped back into second place. With his six(!) Ironman finishes in 2017, Cam Wurf has entered the rankings in third place. Lionel Sanders continues to climb in the rankings, he also had the biggest rating improvement among the top bike riders.

Continuing my look at fast times and great performances from last year, this post has a close look at the bike leg by the Professional women.

Fastest Times

There were a number of fast bike times in 2017, most of them from courses such as Barcelona that are known to be quite fast. By now you have to be able to race well under five hours if you want to be competitive in the female Pro field.

Other quick 2017 bike rides were from Western Australia where Mel Hauschildt rode a 4:37 and Carrie Lester a 4:38, but while the bike was accurate the swim at IM WA was cancelled.

Best Performances

Looking at Normalized Times that adjust for a fast or slow course, the best bike performance was Jen Annett’s course-record setting ride at IM Arizona, closely followed by Daniela’s time from Challenge Roth. Jen and Dani are way ahead of the next performances who are more than five minutes back.

2017 Ratings

Even though Daniela’s bike rating has become slightly slower this season (not a big surprise considering she raced IM South Africa with back problems and her times in Roth and Kona were quicker in 2016), she still leads the rankings by more than seven minutes over Heather Jackson. Heather, Kaisa Sali (now #9) and Tine Deckers (#10) were able to improve their bike rating by more than a minute.

Foto: Daniela on the bike in Kona. Credit: Flows Journal

This post looks at the best male swimmers after the 2017 season. There’s also a post on the fastest female swimmers and I will post on the bike, run and overall times in the next few days.

Fastest Times

As for the females, the current-assisted swim at IM Cozumel led to the fastest swim times in a 2017 Ironman race. (IM Chattanooga which also had a few fast female swims, was a WPRO-only race in 2017.) The fastest swim was a 39:17 by Jarrod Shoemaker, which is also the fastest IM swim time since 2014. The fastest non-Cozumel swim in 2017 was by Luiz Paiva with a 44:12 at IM Brasil.

Best Performances

Almost everyone has been swimming fast at IM Cozumel, but a better indication of the best performances are normalized times that adjust based on how fast (or slow) a race has been. Based on these normalized times, the best swim performances were at IM New Zealand with five of the Top 6 performances – it seems as if a group of strong swimmers tried to get away from the rest of the field and pushed themselves to a hard pace. Marko Albert won that swim by just a few seconds.

2017 Ratings

The best-rated Ironman swimmer at the end of 2017 is Clayton Fettell. At the end of 2016 his rating was impacted by two recent DNFs, in 2017 he was swimming extremely well. IM Kona swim leader Josh Amberger is now ranked in second place, jumping ahead of the more established swimmers such as Jan Frodeno, Marko Albert and Andy Potts.

Foto: Clayton shortly before the start of IM Cairns. Credit: @koruptvision

The best-rated swimmer at the end of 2016 was Dylan McNeice. Dylan was forced to take most of the 2017 season off in order to recover from a hip procedure that should help him to avoid run injuries. Dylan is scheduled to return to racing at IM New Zealand in early March.

This is the first of a series of posts on the fastest and best times in 2017 Ironman-distance races. I will look at the best swim, bike, run and overall times for the men and women as well as the resulting ratings at the end of 2017. This post is about the fastest female swimmers.

Fastest Times

The fastest 12 swim times in a 2017 Ironman are from Cozumel and Chattanooga where currents helped athletes to post really fast times. The fastest time from another Ironman is by Lucy Charles who swam a 47:06 at IM Lanzarote.

Best Performances

If you have watched IM Kona, there won’t be any doubt who are currently the fastest females swimmers: Lucy Charles and Lauren Brandon built a huge lead over the other females in the swim. Between them, they also have the five best 2017 swim performances.

Foto: Lucy exiting the swim at IM Lanzarote. Credit: Ingo Kutsche

Lucy’s swims in Lanzarote and Kona are the #1 and #2 best performances, they are almost at the same level. (Lucy’s third 2017 Ironman race was IM Frankfurt which is classified as invalid because of a shortened bike course. Her swim performance at Frankfurt would have placed sixth on the list.) Lauren Brandon’s swims in Hawaii, Mont Tremblant and Texas were only slightly slower performances.

2017 Ratings

With the number of dominating swims in their 2017 Ironman races, Lucy and Lauren also lead the Swim Ratings at the end of 2017. (Both just had one IM at the end of 2016 and haven’t been ranked a year ago.) There is a sizable gap of more than two minutes to #3 Haley Chura who returned to IM-distance racing in 2017 after a long injury break.

Last year’s best-rated swimmer was Jodie Cunnama, she has become a new mom to son Jack, hasn’t been able to race an Ironman in 2017 and consequently has dropped out of the rankings. She is probably going to re-enter the list of top swimmers when she returns to racing in 2018.