Race Conditions

This year was one of the slower races for Western Australia – the adjustment was 7:30 compared to the new course rating of 11:16 (down from 11:54), so it was about four minutes slower than the average of the last years.

Male Results

Timo Bracht had to come up with another strong run to catch a courageous Clayton Fettel:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Timo Bracht	GER	08:12:39	08:17:14
2	Clayton Fettell	AUS	08:19:02	08:37:14
3	Jason Shortis	AUS	08:27:31	08:50:51
4	Joshua Rix		08:30:59	09:14:24
5	Aaron Farlow	AUS	08:34:09	08:31:27
6	Petr Vabrousek	CZE	08:35:08	08:51:14
7	Mitchell Anderson	AUS	08:35:57	08:37:58
8	Simon Billeau	FRA	08:38:06	08:48:05
9	Luke Whitmore	AUS	08:54:35	08:59:20
10	Maik Twelsiek	GER	08:56:10	08:32:29
11	Luke McKenzie	AUS	09:03:44	08:35:03
12	Leon Griffin	AUS	09:03:49	08:32:23
13	Guy Crawford	AUS	09:10:50	08:55:10
14	Shinya Suganuma	JPN	09:19:15	09:10:15
15	Mike Gee		09:22:49	n/a
16	Dion Harrison	GBR	09:57:07	09:21:10
17	Hirotsugu Kuwabara	JAP	10:47:05	10:03:18

Maik Twelsiek and Luke McKenzie were predicted to go quite a bit faster, but they already lined up their “validation” IM, so now they can – as well as  Timo Bracht – focus on their Kona 2012 prep.

Female Results

On the female side, IM rookie Michelle Bremer won her first IM. Pre-race favorite Kristin Moeller was 40 minutes slower than expected, so she dropped out of the prize money spots:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Michelle Bremer	NZL	09:25:38	n/a
2	Michelle Mitchell	AUS	09:28:07	09:37:28
3	Carrie Lester	AUS	09:32:44	09:36:25
4	Elly Franks	AUS	09:37:51	10:21:46
5	Hillary Biscay	USA	09:39:41	10:08:20
6	Kate Bevilaqua	AUS	09:43:37	09:49:58
7	Yvette Grice	GBR	09:53:33	10:12:04
8	Emi Shiono	JPN	10:00:23	10:00:23
9	Kristin Moeller	GER	10:07:05	09:26:48
10	Suzanne Blackborrow		10:31:51	n/a

The final race of the Ironman 2011 season is coming up this weekend: Ironman Western Australia.

Previous Results

Western Australia is one of the quicker courses with the same course rating as IM Germany (11:54). Last year’s winners were Courtney Ogden (8:14) and Kate Bevilaqua (9:19).

Male Participants

Defending champion Courtney Ogden faces some very strong competition for his title – he has only the 8th best rating! (Still, he has the second highest odds for winning.) The favorite has to be Timo Bracht – apparently he is repeating his last season with an early qualifier to secure his spot for Kona:

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Timo Bracht	GER	08:13:08	08:24:14	7
2	Aaron Farlow	AUS	08:27:14	08:38:39	28
3	Leon Griffin	AUS	08:28:09	08:39:36	31
4	Maik Twelsiek	GER	08:28:15	08:39:42	33
5	Luke McKenzie	AUS	08:30:48	08:42:18	40
6	Clayton Fettell	AUS	08:32:58	08:44:31	47
7	Mitchell Anderson	AUS	08:33:41	08:45:15	54
8	Courtney Ogden	AUS	08:34:32	08:46:07	59
9	Simon Billeau	FRA	08:43:43	08:55:31	113
10	Jason Shortis	AUS	08:46:28	08:58:19	125
11	Petr Vabrousek	CZE	08:46:51	08:58:43	128
12	Guy Crawford	AUS	08:50:45	09:02:42	150
13	Luke Whitmore	AUS	08:54:52	09:06:55	175
14	Shinya Suganuma	JPN	09:05:43	09:18:00	257
15	Chris Dmitrieff	AUS	09:05:53	09:18:11	257
16	Dion Harrison	GBR	09:16:32	09:29:04	345
17	James Bowstead	NZL	09:24:40	09:37:23	401
18	Hirotsugu Kuwabara	JAP	09:58:19	10:11:47	627

The odds for winning are as follows:

• Timo Bracht: 60%
• Courtney Ogden: 14%
• Luke McKenzie: 9%
• Mitchell Anderson: 7%
• Jason Shortis: 4%
• Maik Twelsiek: 3%
• Aaron Farlow: 2%

Female Participants

Similar story on the women’s side: The defending champ (Kate Bevilaqua, ranked 4th) faces strong competition, even if the females athletes before her are not that well known:

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Kristin Moeller	GER	09:22:07	09:34:47	22
2	Carrie Lester	AUS	09:31:40	09:44:32	46
3	Michelle Mitchell	AUS	09:32:42	09:45:36	48
4	Kate Bevilaqua	AUS	09:45:05	09:58:16	78
5	Emi Shiono	JPN	09:55:25	10:08:50	110
6	Hillary Biscay	USA	10:03:19	10:16:54	145
7	Yvette Grice	GBR	10:07:01	10:20:41	157
8	Elly Franks	AUS	10:16:38	10:30:31	183
9	Jodie Scott	AUS	10:27:01	10:41:08	207
10	Michelle Bremer	NZL	n/a	unrated	n/a

The odds for winning are as follows (again the defending champ looks better in the odds than in the ratings):

• Kristin Moeller: 35%
• Kate Bevilaqua: 22%
• Michelle Mitchell: 18%
• Carrie Lester: 16%
• Emi Shiono: 4%
• Yvette Grice: 3%
• Hillary Biscay: 2%

Race Conditions

Adjustments in Cozumel are settling in at around 11 minutes, this time at 10:50. From what I heard conditions were all over the place, with sunshine, rain and wind. Not sure if that was causing it, but a lot of big names had to pull out, most notably pre-race favorite Mathias Hecht and defending champion Yvonne van Vlercken.

Male Results

Michael Lovato managed a solid race when all the people that came off the bike with him ran into problems. One of those athletes is Christian Ritter who was even leading the race on the run. He finished as the last pro (at least fulfilling his “at least one IM” requirement and snagging 50 points in the KPR).

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Michael Lovato	USA	08:23:52	08:37:43
2	Patrick Evoe	USA	08:30:36	08:46:19
3	Alejandro Santamaria	ESP	08:32:50	08:54:39
4	Zach Ruble	USA	08:34:51	09:07:11
5	Andrey Lyatskiy	RUS	08:43:05	09:07:30
6	Trevor Delsaut	FRA	08:44:03	08:54:30
7	Brandon Marsh	USA	08:45:43	08:59:58
8	Bruno Clerbout	BEL	08:47:07	09:05:27
9	Markus Thomschke		08:51:23	n/a
10	Axel Zeebroek	BEL	08:54:06	08:39:27
11	Raul Furtado	BRA	08:54:39	09:07:02
12	Mike Schifferle	SWI	09:01:18	08:59:37
13	Brendan Halpin	USA	09:04:36	09:30:27
14	Richard Thompson		09:05:17	n/a
15	Michael Wetzel	GER	09:07:02	08:59:01
16	Ben Cotter	CAN	09:08:05	09:23:31
17	Andres Castillo Latorre	COL	09:08:06	09:05:13
18	Gregorio Morales	ESP	09:11:49	08:58:23
19	Luiz Francisco Ferreira	BRA	09:19:46	09:01:46
20	Adam O’Meara	CAN	09:20:26	09:25:30
21	Tim Snow	USA	09:21:03	09:17:33
22	Oscar Galindez	ARG	09:27:15	08:44:42
23	Sergio Quezada	MEX	09:27:31	10:15:31
24	Patrick Wallimann	SWI	09:35:38	09:00:51
25	Christopher Bagg	USA	09:38:04	08:53:24
26	Horst Reichel	GER	09:38:20	08:59:58
27	Luca De Paolis	ITA	09:41:16	n/a
28	Simon Malo	CAN	09:47:58	09:36:57
29	Cesar Valera	VEN	09:55:39	09:59:41
30	Richard Wygand	BRA	10:03:04	10:46:27
31	Christian Ritter	GER	11:04:22	08:36:19

Female Results

On the women’s side Simone Benz won her first Ironman. She held on during the run after Sonja Tajsich suffered a flat on the bike and was too far back  to catch her:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Simone Benz	SWI	09:14:08	10:11:25
2	Sonja Tajsich	GER	09:23:15	09:17:08
3	Sophie De Groote		09:26:07	n/a
4	Terra Castro	USA	09:39:35	10:11:41
5	Kristin Andrews		09:42:14	n/a
6	Sara Gross	CAN	09:56:29	09:41:44
7	Sarah Piampiano		09:57:58	n/a
8	Francesca Tibaldi		10:01:39	n/a
9	Tatiana Vertiz		10:15:06	n/a
10	Anne Basso	FRA	10:18:53	10:06:04
11	Federica Frontini	URU	10:22:41	10:37:36
12	Tami Ritchie		10:26:04	n/a
13	Conny Dauben	GER	10:40:38	10:34:48
14	Annett Kamenz	CAN	11:23:14	09:56:44
15	Mariana Andrade	BRA	11:36:34	10:26:34

I’m pretty busy in my day job right now, but Chris Bagg sent me an email asking for my predictions, so I put something together based on the start list on the Cozumel website. With the new IM Pro membership, there are quite a few athletes signing up for a lot of races. When they cancel, the lists are rarely updated accordingly. For example Dirk Bockel was on the list for Arizona, even though he had said weeks before that he wouldn’t start. So I hope this list doesn’t change too much before the start of the race …

Male Participants

Matthias Hecht is the favorite for winning the race:

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Mathias Hecht	SWI	08:33:56	08:42:07	37
2	Stephan Vuckovic	GER	08:37:25	08:45:40	54
3	Swen Sundberg	GER	08:37:55	08:46:10	60
4	Christian Ritter	GER	08:38:42	08:46:58	65
5	Michael Lovato	USA	08:40:03	08:48:20	72
6	Chris McDonald	AUS	08:40:13	08:48:30	74
7	Axel Zeebroek	BEL	08:41:47	08:50:06	86
8	Oscar Galindez	ARG	08:47:03	08:55:27	110
9	Patrick Evoe	USA	08:48:41	08:57:06	116
10	Mikel Elgezabal	ESP	08:52:31	09:01:00	136
11	Christopher Bagg	USA	08:55:47	09:04:19	151
12	Alejandro Santamaria	ESP	08:57:04	09:05:37	160
13	Trevor Delsaut	FRA	08:57:07	09:05:40	161
14	Ian Mikelson	USA	08:59:09	09:07:44	174
15	Balazs Csoke	HUN	09:00:17	09:08:53	180
16	Michael Wetzel	GER	09:01:26	09:10:04	187
17	Horst Reichel	GER	09:02:25	09:11:04	193
18	Brandon Marsh	USA	09:02:26	09:11:05	194
19	Mike Schifferle	SWI	09:03:28	09:12:08	200
20	Patrick Wallimann	SWI	09:03:34	09:12:14	201
21	Luiz Francisco Ferreira	BRA	09:04:12	09:12:52	207
22	Bruno Clerbout	BEL	09:07:57	09:16:41	233
23	Raul Furtado	BRA	09:09:30	09:18:15	250
24	Zach Ruble	USA	09:09:34	09:18:19	252
25	Andrey Lyatskiy	RUS	09:09:58	09:18:44	257
26	Tim Snow	USA	09:20:02	09:28:57	333
27	Ben Cotter	CAN	09:26:02	09:35:03	374
28	Adam O’Meara	CAN	09:28:01	09:37:04	385
29	Brendan Halpin	USA	09:32:59	09:42:07	418
30	Simon Malo	CAN	09:39:28	09:48:42	465
31	Cesar Valera	VEN	10:02:21	10:11:57	612
32	Bojan Maric	SCG	10:05:19	10:14:58	629
33	Sergio Quezada	MEX	10:18:16	10:28:07	694
34	Richard Wygand	BRA	10:49:21	10:59:42	778
35	Luca De Paolis	ITA	n/a	unrated	n/a

Here are the percentages for winning the race:

• Mathias Hecht: 28%
• Michael Lovato: 24%
• Swen Sundberg: 12%
• Stephan Vuckovic: 12%
• Chris McDonald: 8%
• Axel Zeebroek: 6%
• Patrick Evoe: 4%
• Oscar Galindez: 2%

Female Participants

On the women’s side, I’m picking my country woman Sonja Tajsich for winning the race:

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Sonja Tajsich	GER	09:19:39	09:28:34	9
2	Erika Csomor	HUN	09:27:10	09:36:12	24
3	Amanda Stevens	USA	09:34:48	09:43:57	42
4	Sara Gross	CAN	09:48:52	09:58:15	77
5	Ana Lidia Borba	BRA	09:52:02	10:01:28	85
6	Annett Kamenz	CAN	09:59:22	10:08:55	109
7	Anne Basso	FRA	10:08:48	10:18:30	143
8	Simone Benz	SWI	10:14:12	10:23:59	159
9	Terra Castro	USA	10:14:20	10:24:07	160
10	Mariana Andrade	BRA	10:29:21	10:39:23	198
11	Conny Dauben	GER	10:37:40	10:47:50	218
12	Federica Frontini	URU	10:40:28	10:50:40	222
13	Amanda Lovato	USA	10:58:32	11:09:02	252

There are a few “shaky” candidates on the list (Amanda Stevens just raced in Arizona), but here are the odds for winning:

• Sonja Tajsich: 50%
• Erika Csomor: 33%
• Amanda Stevens: 6%
• Annett Kamenz: 5%
• Sara Gross: 4%