Update (July 11th): Mareen has decided to race in Switzerland and has been removed from the UK startlist. Corinne has told me that she won’t be racing either. (Both allowed me to share this information.)

Previous Winners

Last Year’s TOP 3

Male Race Results

Female Race Results

Course Records

Course Rating

The Course Rating for IM UK is 00:47.

Race Adjustments for IM UK

Ironman UK was held in Sherbourn up to 2008, since 2009 it is held in its current location in Bolton.

KPR points and Prize Money

IM UK is a P-2000 race. It has a total prize purse of 75.000 US$.

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

KPR Situation

Male Race Participants

After his second place in Texas, Joe Skipper is almost assured his Kona slot with 4.015 points, but he’ll want to show that he is the best British athlete on the start list.

Behind him, there are quite a few athletes that are looking for some more points to reach my projected cutoff of 3.800 points. Most of them still have an “open points slot” and can just add their UK points to their total, for the others I’m showing the “base points” before removing their weakest result:

• Victor Del Corral (3.020, base 2.900; needs 4th or better)
• Denis Chevrot (2.820; needs 4th or better)
• David McNamee (2.695; probably needs 3rd or better)
• Will Clarke (2.405; needs 3rd or better)
• Fraser Cartmell (1.945; needs a win)

Female Race Participants

Lucy Gossage is racing for the win, with 5.425 points she is already well clear of my cutoff projection of 5.100. Diana Riesler is also safe (6.270) but she has told me that she won’t be racing. There are others that need more points:

• Corinne Abraham (4.725; needs 6th or better – unclear if she’ll race, she was taken off the Switzerland list and posted on her blog that she’ll be racing Maastricht)
• Mareen Hufe (4.490, base 3.975; needs 3rd or better – also on the Switzerland list)
• Michelle Vesterby (3.575; needs 2nd or better)
• Shia-Yu Li (3.560, base 2.600; probably too far back even with a win)

Winning Odds

Male Race Participants

Based on previous results, this looks to be a close race between Denis Chevrot and David Dellow, but David has just had a DNF in Frankfurt. If I had to pick a favorite it would be Joe Skipper who had fantastic race in Texas and is anxious to show he can ride sub-5 in Bolton and win his home IM:

• Denis Chevrot: 26% (3-1)
• David Dellow: 24% (3-1)
• Fraser Cartmell: 15% (6-1)
• Victor Del Corral: 13% (6-1)
• Joe Skipper: 12% (7-1)
• Stephen Bayliss: 6% (15-1)

Female Race Participants

Lucy Gossage is the clear favorite for the women, and another British win looks very likely. Diana Riesler won’t start, and Corinne Abraham and Mareen Hufe are also on the list for Switzerland:

• Lucy Gossage: 44% (1-1)
• Diana Riesler: 30% (2-1)
• Corinne Abraham: 15% (6-1)
• Michelle Vesterby: 8% (11-1)
• Mareen Hufe: 2% (48-1)

Update (July 10th): Corinne Abraham and Eimear Mullan are no longer on the startlist posted by ironman.com.

Update (July 14th): Matt Trautmann has tweeted that he has broken his clavicle. Speedy healing, I hope he’ll be back in form for Kona.

Previous Winners

Last Year’s TOP 3

Male Race Results

Female Race Results

Course Records

Course Rating

The Course Rating for IM Switzerland is 06:06.

Race Adjustments for IM Switzerland

KPR points and Prize Money

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

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

KPR Situation

Men

A few of the men are already safe for a July Kona slot:

• Ronnie Schildknecht (5.550)
• Matt Trautmann (7.195)

• Miquel Blanchard Tinto: 3.700 at 3+1 (to improve he needs to score more than 960 points, i.e. 3rd or better)
• Michael Raelert (3.000, he races Zürich as his 2015 IM race, a 4th or better should be enough for him)

• Mike Aigroz (2.825)
• Jan Van Berkel (2.600)
• David Plese (2.285)
• Alessandro Degasperi (2.000)
• Mauro Baertsch (1.905)
• Alberto Casadei (1.791)

Women

Mary Beth Ellis already has enough points for a slot, but she still needs to finish an Ironman (but will be racing for a good result as well).

In addition to her, there are athletes that need to place well to score the points they still need for a July slot (projected cutoff at 5.100 points). Most of them have already raced a lot, so in addition to the points they have at this point, I also show the “base” points they have before adding a good Zürich result to their score:

• Corinne Abraham (4.725, same base; needs a 7th or better, but was DNS in Austria and it’s not clear if she’ll be racing)
• Mareen Hufe (4.490, base 3.975; needs 3rd or better)
• Beth Gerdes (4.515, base 3.795; needs 2nd or better)
• Dimitry-Lee Duke (3.945, base 3.625; needs 2nd or better)

Winning Odds

Male Race Participants

Ronnie Schildknecht has won this race seven times in a row, last year he was forced to race in Frankfurt in order to get more points for his Kona qualifying. This year, he is already safe after a 3rd place in Texas and can go back to his home race. He is joined by a number of strong athletes that are looking for more Kona points or a just a decent Ironman race:

• Ronnie Schildknecht: 43% (1-1)
• Matt Trautman: 17% (5-1)
• Alessandro Degasperi: 15% (6-1)
• David Plese: 8% (12-1)
• Miquel Blanchart Tinto: 6% (16-1)
• Mike Aigroz: 4% (23-1)
• Michael Raelert: 4% (24-1)

Female Race Participants

• Mary Beth Ellis: 50% (1-1)
• Corinne Abraham: 22% (4-1)
• Beth Gerdes: 13% (7-1)
• Mareen Hufe: 9% (11-1)
• Eimear Mullan: 3% (28-1)

Race Conditions

This year’s IM Germany was very hot with lots of sun and temperatures getting close to 40°C/100°F. This lead to overall slower times, an adjustment of 4:45 was a lot slower than the course rating of 12:38. It seemed to uniformly affect the swim (non-wetsuit of course), the bike and the run. The effects on the age groupers was probably even higher.

Male Race Results

Jan Frodeno was one of the favorites going into the race, and he delivered a fantastic race with best splits on all three legs (including a 4:08 bike leg – third fastest ever on the Ironman bike leg!) and a new course record improving on Sebi’s 7:55 from last year.

Sebi finished in second place, almost 12 minutes back of Frodo. Nonetheless, he had a good race not loosing to much time in the swim, improving on his bike course record from last year and then having a solid 2:56 marathon in the heat. In third place there was another German: Andi Böcherer had a very good race after struggling with injuries for the last years.

Behind the top three, Bas Diederen (4th), Ty Butterfield (7th) and Eneko Llanos (8th) scored some more points for their Kona slots. Frederik Van Lierde finished fifth, but after his win in South Africa his focus was probably more on Kona in October. After struggling a bit on the swim, Andreas Raelert had a solid race, but his 6th place leaves him still short of enough points for a slot.

Female Race Results

Daniela Ryf continued her impressive string of Ironman races with a solid win in Frankfurt, posting another course record. After staying in a group with Julia Gajer and Caroline Steffen until about 90k on the bike, she took off and quickly built a 7-minute lead into T2 and finished off the day with her fastest IM marathon so far.

As she was hoping for, Julia Gajer managed to take another step forward in her long distance racing. She staid with Daniela and Caroline on the swim and when Daniela rode away from them, she was also able to build a lead to Caroline Steffen, starting the run 3 minutes ahead of Caroline. There were no changes in the Top 3 on the run, only the differences increased between Daniela, Julia and Caroline.

Behind them, lots of positions changed. Sonja Tajsich struggled with injuries for quite some time, she had a solid day to finish in fourth. She was almost run down by Ruth Brennan-Morrey who used a 3:04:49 marathon to run her way from 9th in T2 into a 5th place finish that she needed for a Kona slot.

Kristin Möller had the fastest run split of the day, the 3:01:14 took her into 6th place.

Michelle Vesterby was fourth in T2 but DNF’d around the half marathon mark. She needs to do another Ironman if she wants to qualify. Tine Deckers was fifth in T2, but she finished in 7th just a few weeks after racing IM Brasil and also needs more points.

Previous Winners

Last Year’s TOP 3

Male Race Results

Female Race Results

Course Records

Course Rating

The Course Rating for Challenge Roth is 18:43.

Race Adjustments for Challenge Roth

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

Winning Odds

Male Race Participants

This year we’ll see a re-match from last year: Timo Bracht ran down Nils Frommhold to finally win in Roth. As long as Andy Starykowicz is fit again after last year’s injury, he will make the race very interesting: He will be trying to build a big lead on the swim and bike (anyone betting on him going sub-4 for the bike?) and then hold on to his lead on the run. There are a few others that can contend for a podium spot.

• Timo Bracht: 36% (2-1)
• Nils Frommhold: 32% (2-1)
• Clemente Alonso McKernan: 19% (4-1)
• Andrew Starykowicz: 5% (19-1)
• Horst Reichel: 3% (31-1)
• Markus Fachbach: 2% (43-1)

Female Race Participants

Yvonne is the clear favorite, she has won here in 2007 and 2008. Gina Crawford another top athlete that is always good for a solid race. Anja Beranek will look for a good long distance race after deciding not to chase a Kona slot this year.

• Yvonne Van Vlerken: 54% (1-1)
• Gina Crawford: 18% (4-1)
• Diana Riesler: 18% (5-1)
• Anja Beranek: 8% (11-1)

Race Conditions

If there was one thing the 2015 edition of “CdA” will be remembered for, it was the heat. Temperatures well over 100°F (38°C) lead to a discussion of shortening the race before deciding on an earlier start, a non-wetsuit swim, a high DNF rate and some spectacular struggles (though no serious issues as far as I have heard). While the swim and bike were pretty normal, the run was very slow for CdA (adjustment of -4:54), and the overall adjustment of -8:24 leads to a new course rating of -0:02.

Male Race Results

Andy Potts made it clear from the start that he was focused on winning this race – he didn’t want to waste any energy and Barrett Brandon was first out of the water. After that Andy quickly took control of the race, he had a great race posting both the fastest bike and run, winning by more than 20 minutes. He was followed by Callum Millward who proved to be a tough competitor in tough conditions in only his second Ironman race. The surprise third finisher was Stephen Kilshaw who edged out countryman Trevor Wurtele for the final spot on the podium.

Female Race Results

After making up the swim deficit to super-swimmer Amanda Stevens, Heather Jackson took the lead by mile 65 on the bike and went on to posted the fastest marathon by far. Similar to Andy, Heather had a huge winning margin. Only four weeks after IM Brasil, Amanda Stevens finished second; both Heather and Amanda have enough points for a July Kona slot. The final spot on the podium went to Kim Schwabenbauer.

The only DNF in the women’s pro field was Dede Griesbauer who was mowed down by a truck illegally entering the race course. She was banged up pretty badly, but was allowed to leave the hospital after a few x-rays. She did not have a chance to score the points she still needed for a Kona slot, I hope she recovers quickly for another chance!