Update (Apr 27th): Brad Kahlefeldt announced on Instagram that he suffered a labral tear during his last long training run after avoiding a dog attack. He hopes to be back to running after a short break and then race IM Cairns.

Previous Winners

Last Year’s TOP 3

Male Race Results

Female Race Results

Course Records

Course Rating

The Course Rating for IM Australia is 04:32.

Race Adjustments for IM Australia

KPR points and Prize Money

IM Australia is a P-2000 race. It has a total prize purse of 50.000 US$.

Male Race Participants

This is the first time I’m including a “Consistency” in my pre-race post. It shows the fraction of races where an athlete has been about as expected (the first number), significantly faster (the number with the “+”) or significantly slower (including DNFs, the number with the “-“) and also the total number of IM starts. For more information have a look at my post on “Consistency of Athletes“.

Female Race Participants

This is the first time I’m including a “Consistency” in my pre-race post. It shows the fraction of races where an athlete has been about as expected (the first number), significantly faster (the number with the “+”) or significantly slower (including DNFs, the number with the “-“) and also the total number of IM starts. For more information have a look at my post on “Consistency of Athletes“.

Winning Odds

Male Race Participants

Even if almost all the athletes are from Australia or New Zealand, it’ll be an interesting, wide open race: Most of the top-rated athletes have been struggling a bit lately. Brad Kahlefeldt has only finished one IM, followed by a DNF in Kona. David Dellow had a fantastic sub-8 in Roth but also a string of DNFs. Dougal Allan has already been racing a lot this year, posting bike records in Wanaka and at IM New Zealand, but it’s unclear if he’s recovered well for another fast race. Defending champion Paul Ambrose is seeded fourth in my data, if he has a good day he’ll be the one to watch. Luke Bell is another great athlete, but he’s been quite inconsistent lately. Tim Reed is returning to the IM distance after a DNF in Western Australia – as a strong swimmer he’ll be in the mix for a long time, but he’ll need a solid run for a solid Ironman finish.

In addition, with Josh Amberger and Levi Maxwell there are two Ironman-rookies that make predicting the race even harder.

• Dougal Allan: 29% (2-1)
• David Dellow: 27% (3-1)
• Brad Kahlefeldt: 20% (4-1)
• Paul Ambrose: 11% (8-1)
• Luke Bell: 11% (8-1)

Female Race Participants

Gina Crawford is clearly the best rated athlete in the women’s field, but she hasn’t had many good results lately and seems to be dialing back her racing career this year. This would put US athlete (but currently Australian-based) Beth Gerdes into the favorite’s role. Beth will be eying Lisa Bentley’s run record (3:01:06) – and so far we haven’t had a sub-3 women’s run this year. Defending champion Michelle Bremer should be in front of Beth for the swim and bike, but Michelle will need another new run PR (she just ran 3:14 at IM New Zealand) to defend her title.

• Gina Crawford: 35% (2-1)
• Beth Gerdes: 33% (2-1)
• Michelle Bremer: 19% (4-1)
• Lisa Marangon: 6% (15-1)
• Dimity-Lee Duke: 3% (29-1)

Race Conditions

After a typically slow swim the new bike course proved to be much quicker than the old one. It remains to be seen if this was because most of the harder hills were cut from the course or because conditions were favorable this year – reportedly there wasn’t much wind. Even with the fast conditions we didn’t see any new course records – even if Ben Hoffman would probably have been able to find 3 seconds somewhere to break Gerrit Schellens run course record from 2007!

Male Race Results

After leading out of the swim, Marko Albert was at the front for the bike as well, even if he had some company with Bas Diederen and Ben Collins. Bas was the first into T2, but he struggled on the run, and Marko was leading the race until 15k. He then dropped back into fourth place, but rallied in the final stretch to pass Matt Trautmann and claimed the third spot on the podium. The quickest runners were Ben Hoffmann and Tim Van Berkel who had reached T2 just three minute behind the leaders, and Ben proved to be the stronger of the two. With 2:45:50 he posted the fastest marathon of the day, missing the run course record by only two seconds! Tim finished in second place.

Ben received an Automatic Qualifier slot for Kona, and both Tim and Matt should have enough points for Kona, as do fifth and sixth place finishers Boris Stein and Ruedi Wild (who had the best relative performance of the day, more than an hour quicker than expected!). Marko will still need a few more points to qualify for Kona.

Female Race Results

As expected Jodie Swallow was the fastest swimmer and in the lead on the bike. But at about 110k into the ride she fell hard without being clear what caused the crash. She was able to continue on the bike but had hurt her elbow and was loosing time to Annabel Luxford who was leading in T2 by 6 minutes over Jodie. Jodie started the run but had to call it a day after 8k. (I’m wishing her a speedy recovery and look forward to see her again at the front of her next race!) Bella had the fastest bike split by more than six minutes, but she posted after the race that she might have ridden a bit too hard. After Jodie withdrew Bella had a gap of more than 12 minutes to the speedy runners behind her, but that was only good enough for 20k. Kaisa Lehtonen proved that her second place at IM Barcelona was just the start and claimed her first Ironman title with the fastest run split. The second and third from last year took repeated this year but traded places: Susie Cheetham again had the better run and claimed second place, but Lucy Gossage’s third place only four weeks after her second place at IM New Zealand is an amazing result. Asa Lundstroem in fourth place had a solid race all day, she also passed Bella who ended up in fifth place.

As a Regional Champion Kaisa receives an Automatic Qualifier slot. After their great results in Kona and in Port Elizabeth Susie, Lucy, Asa and Annabel have enough points to be safe for a July slot.

Update April 4th: Victor Del Corral, Andreas Niedrig and Corinne Abraham won’t be starting.

Update April 6th: Daniela Sämmler has announced she has been sick and won’t start. Stephen Bayliss is reported by Tri247 to focus on IM Lanzarote. Diana Riesler will be racing IM Lanzarote and a start in Port Elizabeth seems very unlikely.

Update April 7th: Another German, Katja Konschak, has reportedly had an accident and won’t be racing.

Previous Winners

Last Year’s TOP 3

Male Race Results

Female Race Results

Course Records

Course Rating

The Course Rating for IM South Africa is 01:04.

The course has changed a bit this year – the bike course stays closer to the coast which might make it windier but also a lot less hilly than in previous years. Race conditions in South Africa depend a lot on the weather conditions, but the course changes could lead to fast times this year.

Race Adjustments for IM South Africa

KPR points and Prize Money

IM South Africa is a P-4000 race. It has a total prize purse of 150.000 US$ and automatic Kona slots for the male and female winners.

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

Winning Odds

Male Race Participants

After Jan Frodeno had to cancel his start in South Africa, the race is much more open. Based on previous results Ronnie Schildknecht and Bas Diederen are a step ahead of the rest, but there are 20 athletes that I expect to finish within 25 minutes so a lot can happen on race day. I’m sure that the South African athletes will be working extra hard for a podium spot (if not the very top spot), and it’ll be very interesting to follow Matt Trainman, James Cunnama and Kyle Buckingham on race day. Then there are a number of international athletes that could also do well:

• Ronnie Schildknecht: 30% (2-1)
• Bas Diederen: 25% (3-1)
• Matt Trautman: 9% (10-1)
• James Cunnama: 7% (13-1)
• Jan Van Berkel: 5% (18-1)
• Ben Hoffman: 5% (19-1)
• Kyle Buckingham: 4% (23-1)
• Tim Van Berkel: 4% (27-1)

Female Race Participants

Based on the performance she showed last year, Jodie Swallow is the front runner in the women’s race. She faces strong competition by her British compatriots Corinne Abraham (hopefully back to racing healthy), Lucy Gossage (hopefully recovered from racing IM New Zealand) and Susie Cheetham (probably not quite at 100% after breaking her arm at 70.3 South Africa in January).

• Jodie Swallow: 40% (1-1)
• Corinne Abraham: 20% (4-1)
• Lucy Gossage: 19% (4-1)
• Diana Riesler: 11% (8-1)
• Susie Cheetham: 5% (20-1)
• Amanda Stevens: 4% (23-1)

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.