Race Conditions

As has to be expected by the tough course in Lanzarote, the race was quite slow. An adjustment of -23:21 is easily 40 minutes slower than Austria, Roth, Copenhagen or Barcelona, mainly because of the hard bike course (adjustment of -20:07). This year’s edition was maybe two or three minutes slower (again mainly because of the bike) than what is “normal” for IM Lanzarote.

Male Race Results

Jan Frodeno started the race well: He had the fastest swim of the day but then lost roughly two minutes in T1 in order to fix some issue with his helmet. (He also had some issues with the same or very similar helmet in Frankfurt.) While Johann Ackermann was leading the bike, a lot of good runners were within minutes. After T2, Jan was quickly back in the lead, but Jesse Thomas had paced the swim and bike well, had the best run of the day, was able to overtake Jan and continue his perfect IM record by winning IM Lanzarote. Jan validated his Kona slot with a solid second place finish while David McNamee had to fight hard for the third spot on the podium.

Christopher Baird had the best relative race of the day – the best bike split and a 2:47 run was more than an hour quicker than expected and good for fourth. Ivan Rana finished fifth while Timo Bracht couldn’t quite find the run speed to finish better than sixth.

Jesse, Jan and David are now safe for a July Kona slot, while Ivan is “on the bubble”. Timo and the rest of the finishers still need more points.

Female Race Results

For a long time, Lucy Charles was leading the field in her Pro IM debut. She swam with the men’s lead group, her 47:11 is a new swim course record. She maintained the lead on the bike, but defending champion Diana Riesler was closing the gap. But the fastest bike of the day was posted by Tine Holst who also stormed to the lead on the run. Towards the end Alexandra Tondeur was getting closer with the best run of the day, but Tine won her first Ironman race in front of Alexandra. Lucy Charles managed to finish third, she overtook Diana Riesler who was cramping towards the end and finished fourth. Caroline Livesey finished fifth. Alyssa Godesky has recovered from her crash in Wanaka to finish the day with a good 3:21 marathon and sixth place.

With Lanzarote only Tine managed to score enough points to be safe for a Kona slot. Alexandra Tondeur is “on the bubble”, while the others will need to race again and score more points.

Update May 28th: After the Pro briefing and thanks to a tweet by Witsup, we know that a few females won’t be racing, namely Kirsty Jahn, Mackenzie Madison, Molly Roohi, Tine Holst and Alexandra Moura. (I haven’t seen similar information for the men.)

Previous Winners

Last Year’s TOP 3

Male Race Results

Female Race Results

Course Records

Course Rating

The Course Rating for IM Brasil is 18:12.

Race Adjustments for IM Brasil

KPR points and Prize Money

IM Brasil is a P-4000 race and offers automatic qualifier slots for the winners. It has a total prize purse of 150.000 US$.

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

Also have a look at my profile of Liz Lyles.

Winning Odds

Male Race Participants

A couple of athletes on the start list (such as Chris McDonald who raced Texas) are unlikely to start, but most of the pre-race favorites are committed to race in Florianopolis. Brent McMahon has had a number of really strong results including a third place in Brasil 2015 (behind Marino Vanhoenacker and Tim O’Donnell who won’t be racing Brasil this year). Stefan Schmid ended his 2015 season with a win in Cozumel and just needs a few more KPR points to secure his slot. Ronnie Schildknecht has already raced IM South Africa (finishing 9th), he also needs a few more points if he wants to return to Kona.

Behind these three athletes there is a number of athletes that are looking for a good result and the corresponding KPR points. Paul Matthews has been struggling a bit since racing Kona 2014, he was 17th in Brasil last year followed by two DNFs. As usual Tim Don has scored a ton of points in 70.3 races, he probably just needs to finish to secure his Kona ticket. Racing in his home country, Guillermo Manocchio will try to race at the same level as when he won IM Copenhagen last summer.

• Brent McMahon: 36% (2-1)
• Stefan Schmid: 26% (3-1)
• Ronnie Schildknecht: 14% (6-1)
• Paul Matthews: 8% (12-1)
• Chris McDonald: 5% (18-1)
• Guilherme Manocchio: 4% (24-1)
• Tim Don: 2% (55-1)

Female Race Participants

Earlier versions of the startlist had a lot of names that were also racing in Texas, now the field is taking a clearer shape. Liz Lyles (second last year) is the pre-race favorite in front of defending champion Ariane Monticelli. Caitlin Snow, Mareen Hufe and Kristin Moller are strong podium contenders.

• Elizabeth Lyles: 37% (2-1)
• Ariane Monticeli: 24% (3-1)
• Mareen Hufe: 14% (6-1)
• Caitlin Snow: 10% (9-1)
• Kristin Moeller: 6% (16-1)

Race Conditions

The shortened bike course makes a comparison with other Texas races very hard and I won’t consider this year’s results for my ratings or for course records. Linearly scaling the bike times from 94 to 112 miles doesn’t yield valid “full-distance times” – race times that are shorter by roughly 40 minutes create a different race dynamic. Nonetheless, I have analyzed the scaled race splits in the same way as for a “valid” IM. The splits are colored accordingly and a “diff to expected” is shown to indicate on how good some times have been. Of course all this analysis has to be taken with a grain of salt, but here are a few additional observations:

• The male winning time by Patrick Lange would correspond to a sub-8 time, the female winning time by Julia Gajer to a sub-9 finish.
• The last minute changes to the swim course didn’t have a major influence on the swim times – a swim adjustment of -1:39 is almost exactly the Texas average of -1:27.
• Lauren Brandon had the fastest swim overall. (This is the first time that a female had the fastest swim since Sweden 2013, when Jodie Swallow lead the field.)
• Most reports indicate that the new bike course wasn’t quite as hard to follow as anticipated, but there were a few tricky sections and also some car traffic on the course. Andy Starykowicz’s fastest bike time would roughly correspond to a 4:04 – very fast, but “almost normal” for Andy. Looking at the whole field, the bike times were quite comparable to the times we have seen in earlier years, maybe they would have been quicker by four to five minutes than in the past.
• With the shortened bike course I also expected quicker run times. Some athletes had great runs – Patrick Lange’s winning marathon of 2:40:01 would have broken Matt Hanson’s course record, and there were two sub-3 runs in the women’s field by Lisa Roberts (3rd, fastest run split of 2:59:03) and Jodie Robertson (2nd). But we’ve also seen some “explosions” on the run: In addition to Andy Starykowicz who DNF’d, Lauren Brandon just broke four hours and Matt Hanson had to walk after running himself into 3rd place – eventually finishing 23rd. The adjustment would have been similar to what we’ve seen in Texas in the last few years.

Male Race Results

As the winner of the North American Regional championship Patrick Lange receives an Automatic Qualifier spot. Matt Russell and Terenzo Bozzone now have enough points to be safe for a July slot. Eneko Llanos hasn’t added too many points with his 13th place finish, but he validated his slot and is also safe now. Callum Millward is on the bubble, at 3.580 points he’s right at my projected cutoff of 3.500 points. He already has five results (his worst is 435 points), so it won’t be easy to improve his total. Jeremy Juekiewicz has 2.530 points (but only one IM and one 70.3 race), so he should be able to add some more points if he wants to qualify.

Female Race Results

After Kaisa Lehtonen as winner of IM South Africa, Julia Gajer is the second European Automatic Qualifier this year. Julia has raced an amazingly stable race, almost exactly hitting her predicted times, so even if her individual legs were in line with what could be expected, her overall time was a good deal quicker. Lisa Roberts also had a great race. She is well ahead of the projected cutoff of 4.500 points and safe for a July slot. Alicia Kaye has scored well, but needs to add to her 4.340 points if she wants to qualify – another good 70.3 result should be enough for her. Jodie Robertson (3.960) and Emma-Kate Lidbury (3.695, but already 5 results) have to plan how to best get the remaining points needed.

Update May 13th: According to her blog, Jeanne Collonge won’t be able to race, she’s targeting IM France now. Also there are a number of athletes on the startlist for IM Texas, so we may see some late withdrawals in the days before the race.

Update May 18th: According BMC-Etixx Sports Director Ben De Wolf Romain Guillaume won’t start in Lanzarote but is focusing on IM Cairns instead.

Previous Winners

Last Year’s TOP 3

Male Race Results

Female Race Results

Course Records

It’s quite unusual that an overall course record race isn’t showing up in any of the individual legs. This shows that – even more than in other races – the winner in Lanzarote has to have a balanced race across all three legs.

Course Rating

The Course Rating for IM Lanzarote is – 14:36.

Race Adjustments for IM Lanzarote

KPR points and Prize Money

IM Lanzarote is a P-2000 race. It has a total prize purse of 25.000 US$.

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

Winning Odds

Male Race Participants

Based on the raw numbers, current Kona champion Jan Frodeno is the clear favorite to win the race – he’s got the best swim, bike and run ratings of the whole field. But he’s had a calf injury that forced him to skip IM South Africa and his main focus for Lanzarote will be to validate his automatic qualifier Kona slot, so maybe there is a chance for the other athletes. Timo Bracht would be the favorite in almost any other field, he’s focused on getting the points he needs to qualify for Kona – for him that would mean a Top 3. (Timo currently has 2.320 points.) David McNamee (3.310), Ivan Rana (3.025) and Jesse Thomas (2.545) need to finish just outside the Top 3 to secure a July slot, while Romain Guillaume (1.470) would have to win to punch his Kona ticket.

• Jan Frodeno: 43% (1-1)
• Timo Bracht: 34% (2-1)
• Ivan Rana: 11% (8-1)
• Romain Guillaume: 3% (29-1)
• Jesse Thomas: 3% (32-1)
• David McNamee: 2% (39-1)

Female Race Participants

2015 Lanzarote champion Diana Riesler is the clear favorite to defend her title – and she will need the points to have a shot at July qualifying after her DNF in Kona. The athlete with the most KPR points is Tine Holst (3.185), she’ll need at least a Top3 for a July slot. The next best in the KPR are Alexandra Tondeur (2.630), Saleta Castro (1.375) and Caroline Livesay (1.150) who need a great performance in Lanzarote to keep their Kona chances alive.

• Diana Riesler: 72% (1-1)
• Jeanne Collonge: 8% (12-1)
• Saleta Castro Nogueira: 7% (13-1)
• Tine Holst: 5% (18-1)
• Caroline Livesey: 4% (22-1)
• Alexandra Tondeur: 2% (44-1)

With Lucy Charles there is an interesting new Pro female in the field. Lucy was the fastest female amateur in Kona 2015, and her swim time of 52:20 was a whopping 2:44 than Jodie Swallow’s best Pro swim time. While we can expect Lucy to lead after the swim, she’ll need to step up her bike and run (5:38 and 3:44 in Kona) to hold on to the lead. But she’ll be a factor in the Top 5 for sure, and maybe even for the podium.