Race Conditions

The reports from IM Australia indicated that the conditions were quite hard, with a heavy wind making the bike and run pretty hard when having to attack it head-on. This is borne out by the race results. Before the race, the course was rated 12:14 (i.e. 12:14 faster than a normalized course). This year’s results resulted in an adjustment of 9:30, so conditions were about 3 minutes slower than usually in Australia.

Male Results

The men’s field was not very deep, but after Craig Alexander’s cancellation a few days before the race the race was wide open. It even seemed possible that Patrick Vernay might be able to continue his winning streak. In the end, however, it was Pete Jacobs who scored his first IM win:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Pete Jacobs	AUS	08:29:28	08:37:27
2	Patrick Vernay	NCL	08:35:50	08:28:31
3	Jason Shortis	AUS	08:46:07	08:47:39
4	Scott Neyedli	GBR	08:47:16	08:55:25
5	Courtney Ogden	AUS	08:49:56	08:44:37
6	Luke Whitmore		08:54:57	n/a
7	Scott Curry	CAN	09:06:31	09:15:25
8	Chris Dmitrieff	AUS	09:39:26	09:02:06
9	Adam Holborow	AUS	09:40:49	09:12:55

Pete Jacobs continued his streak of strong race results, Patrick Vernay was just a little bit off but managed a 2nd place. 40-year old Jason Shortis almost exactly raced according to predictions and held off Scott Neyedli, whose good time wasn’t quite good enough for the podium.

The most interesting consequence of the race may be the changes to Crowie’s future race plans: He has to finish one Ironman to validate his Hawaii spot, and my prediction is that he will do an early race as soon as he is over his infection. Maybe he’ll be a late addition to IM Texas? (IM China may be good conditions for him – i.e. hot -  but probably “too hard” for what he is trying to achieve.)

Female Results

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Caroline Steffen	SWI	09:29:54	09:28:45
2	Amelia Pearson	AUS	09:38:23	10:03:08
3	Nicole Ward	AUS	09:49:23	10:08:16
4	Kirsten Molloy	AUS	09:53:55	10:08:46
5	Erin Spitler		10:08:33	n/a

Expected time is based on athlete’s rating (prior to race) and race conditions.

I don’t think there ever was any doubt that Caroline Steffen would win this race as long as she finishes. She seemed to have some issues during the race, but finished right where I expected her. If she can enjoy a good Hawaii prep, she is certainly a contender for a podium finish, even if she seems to be not quite on the same level of Chrissie or Rinnie.

The next race on the IM calendar is Ironman Australia. Here is a look IM Australia and the upcoming race. Some additional details on the athletes can be found in the previous post.

Previous Results

Last year’s IM Australia results on Ironman.com and the race’s site are a bit of a mess, so here is “cleaned up” version of the pro results (at least to the best of what I was able to do looking at race results and press releases – please let me know if there’s anything wring) :

Male Race Results 2010

Rank	Name	Nation	Time
1	Patrick Vernay	NCL	08:23:54
2	Scott Neyedli	GBR	08:27:58
3	Courtney Ogden	AUS	08:35:54
4	Matt White	AUS	08:36:39
5	Paul Ambrose	AUS	08:38:24
6	Tim Berkel	AUS	08:40:46
7	Adam Holborow	AUS	08:48:36
8	David Meade	AUS	08:56:14
9	Adrian Cominotto		09:28:28
10	Nathan Fitzakerley		09:32:23
11	Joshua Rix		09:58:11

Female Race Results 2010

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual
1	Carrie Lester	AUS	09:23:46
2	Rebekah Keat	AUS	09:33:10
3	Amelia Pearson	AUS	09:46:09
4	Diana Riesler	GER	09:57:04
5	Kirsten Molloy	AUS	09:59:10
6	Conny Dauben	GER	10:46:03
7	Desiree Ficker	USA	11:14:54

Course Rating

Overall, IM Australia is about as fast as IM South Africa or IM Canada with a course rating of 12:41 (compared to 2:46 for IM Hawaii as the slowest course and 29:30 for Challenge Roth as the quickest course).

Having added the previous IM Australia results (generously supplied by Athlinks), there were some new results for Chris McCormack (winner in 2005 and 2006) and for Craig Alexander (3rd in 2007). As this was Crowie’s first IM race, he approached it cautiously and posted his slowest IM time. This resulted in Crowie dropping to the 3rd spot in the ratings (Macca still being No. 1). Andreas Raelert picked up one spot and is now 2nd – but he’s got some slower results in IM Germany (which is up for processing before the early July race).

Men’s Predictions

Here’s a look at my predictions for the men’s pro race:

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Craig Alexander	AUS	08:09:21	08:24:42	3
2	Patrick Vernay	NCL	08:21:53	08:37:38	10
3	Pete Jacobs	AUS	08:30:43	08:46:44	24
4	Courtney Ogden	AUS	08:37:55	08:54:10	40
5	Jason Shortis	AUS	08:40:46	08:57:06	48
6	Scott Neyedli	GBR	08:48:25	09:05:00	82
7	Chris Dmitrieff	AUS	08:55:01	09:11:48	100
8	Adam Holborow	AUS	09:05:42	09:22:49	144
9	Nathan Stewart	AUS	09:07:09	09:24:19	151
10	Scott Curry	CAN	09:08:11	09:25:23	164
11	Gavin Scott	NZL	09:08:23	09:25:35	165

Craig Alexander is the overall favorite, and should be able to post a finishing time close to 8 hours. I’m quite interested in Pete Jacobs performance, he seems to be on a pretty good development (posting the fastest run split in Kona), and if he has a good day, he might be one to give Craig a bit of a scare. Behind the TOP3 there are another 3 good, solid athletes that will try to take a spot on the podium – and I’m sure that 6th ranked Scott Neyedli will try to defend his 2nd spot from last year.

Women’s Predictions

As in the men’s race, there is a clear pre-race favorite:

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Caroline Steffen	SWI	09:21:22	09:38:59	12
2	Amelia Pearson	AUS	09:55:15	10:13:56	74
3	Nicole Ward	AUS	10:00:32	10:19:23	85
4	Kirsten Molloy	AUS	10:00:49	10:19:40	86

Chrissie Wellington had another amazing race in South Africa – this is what most triathlon new sites are reporting. Here’s a closer look at the statistical outcome of this race.

Race Adjustment

IM South Africa is usually a medium quick race (course handicap around 10 minutes), but in the last few years has been a bit faster – not sure what has caused this, but there might have been some course changes before the 2008 race. Compared to these years, the 2011 race was typical with an adjustment of 17:27. (To recap, the adjustment is the average difference between the participant’s ratings and their actual race time.) Conditions have been reported to be quite nice, but maybe a bit hot during the run. This may have contributed to quite a few big names dropping out, for example the pre-race favorite Marino Vanhoenacker, Luke Bell, Rutger Beke, Jason Shortis, Michael Göhner, Bert Jammaer and Natascha Badmann. Tom Lowe didn’t even start the race, but I haven’t heard anything of why that was the case.

Female Results

As noted above, the big result this weekend was Chrissie Wellington’s quick time, so I’ll start with the females:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Chrissie Wellington	GBR	08:33:56	08:40:32
2	Rachel Joyce	GBR	09:08:23	09:23:52
3	Diana Riesler	GER	09:20:37	n/a
4	Silvia Felt	GER	09:24:31	n/a
5	Amanda Stevens	USA	09:25:50	n/a
6	Belinda Granger	AUS	09:28:59	09:28:29
7	Simone Benz	SWI	09:31:21	10:55:35
8	Martina Dogana	ITA	09:47:47	09:40:28
9	Yvette Grice	GBR	09:59:28	10:14:56
10	Eva Dollinger	AUT	10:00:24	09:34:34
11	Claire Horner	SAF	10:11:55	10:47:25
12	Helen Buley	SAF	10:26:29	10:17:14
13	Caroline Koll	SAF	10:37:39	10:17:59

Expected time is based on athlete’s rating (prior to race) and race conditions.

Chrissie posted a quicker time than her 8:36 at IM Arizona time from last November. (I find it a bit silly to call it an “IM world record” knowing that she posted an 8:19 in Roth 2010.)  Looking at the statistics, the TOP4 best results ever are from Chrissie – and all on different courses!

Rank	Name	Adjusted Result	Actual Result	Race
1	Wellington, Chrissie	08:40:26	08:19:13	Challenge Roth on 2010-07-18
2	Wellington, Chrissie	08:48:59	08:54:02	IM Hawaii on 2009-10-10
3	Wellington, Chrissie	08:50:32	08:33:56	IM South Africa on 2011-04-10
4	Wellington, Chrissie	09:00:42	08:36:13	IM Arizona on 2010-11-21

Simply amazing – for me that’s about as impressive as the fact that Chrissie posted the overall best run split. The sky seems to be the limit for her.

Behind Chrissie, Rachel Joyce had another great race, but her excellent 9:03 – twenty minutes quicker than expected – pales in comparison with Chrissie’s performance. With Natascha not finishing, I predicted Belinda Granger to round out the TOP3, but even with her solid 9:28 (almost exactly as predicted) it was a trio of three unrated pros coming in before her and Diana Riesler getting the third spot.

Male Results

On the male side, there was quite a bit back and forth at the top of the race, and finally home favorite Raynard Tissink was able to defend his title from last year. All the athletes that were much better rated than him dropped out (most notably Marino Vanhoenacker who was right in the mix), but it was a hard-fought win and he had to post a new course record of 8:05, more than 20 minutes quicker than expected. A really great performance from such an established athlete!

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Raynard Tissink	SAF	08:05:36	08:28:38
2	Andreas Bocherer	GER	08:08:36	09:12:29
3	James Cunnama	ZAF	08:13:18	08:47:47
4	Daniel Fontana	ITA	08:18:51	08:33:00
5	Cyril Viennot	FRA	08:30:42	n/a
6	Eduardo Sturla	ARG	08:32:52	08:27:20
7	Uwe Widmann	GER	08:33:39	08:30:42
8	Petr Vabrousek	CZE	08:40:36	08:46:06
9	Trevor Delsaut	FRA	08:41:57	n/a
10	Balazs Csoke	HUN	08:43:06	n/a
11	Dominik Berger	AUT	08:52:24	n/a
12	Kent Horner	SAF	08:58:39	09:18:39
13	Toby Radcliffe	GBR	09:01:17	09:17:13
14	Mike Schifferle	SWI	09:04:02	09:07:13
15	Sergio Marques	PRT	09:09:30	08:50:00
16	Craig Twigg	GBR	09:10:01	n/a
17	Gilad Rotem	ISR	09:12:06	n/a
18	Erik-Simon Strijk	NDL	09:16:32	n/a
19	Bryn Freeman	SAF	09:23:29	09:27:21
20	Erich Felbabel	FRA	09:23:36	n/a
21	Marcel Bischof	GER	09:32:47	n/a
22	Heinrich Sickl	AUT	10:08:14	09:28:07
23	Freddy Lampret	SAF	10:46:11	09:38:47

Expected time is based on athlete’s rating (prior to race) and race conditions. 

After Raynard, my young countryman Andy Böcherer had a great result and came in second – more than one hour quicker than expected! (Then again, I just had one race in my database for him, probably one of his slower results.) Another South African, James Cunnama, managed to snag the last spot on the podium, he was also more than half an hour quicker than expected. A lot of people had told me that Cunnama was underrated before the race, so I’ll have a look at my methodology before my next round of predictions for IM Australia …

The next race on the IM calendar is coming up soon: IM South Africa will be held on April 10th. I’ve put together a preview for this race, based on the pro list (from early March) from their website at http://www.triangle.cc/event/default.asp?micrositeid=2. This list is almost a month old, so some changes are to be expected.

The Course

IM South Africa is medium fast race  with a course rating of 10:31. It is 8 1/2 minutes faster than IM Hawaii (course rating of 1:53), but more than 15 minutes slower than Challenge Roth (course rating of 27:41). The last few years, however, were pretty quick (race handicaps of 17 to 22 minutes), so if the conditions are right, the race can be fast (comparable to typical results at IM Arizona).

The Male Field

Here are the predictions for the male pros (for more infos, see my IM South Africa details):

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Marino Vanhoenacker	BEL	08:17:19	08:33:38	8
2	Tom Lowe	GBR	08:18:43	08:35:04	9
3	Michael Goehner	GER	08:24:32	08:41:05	15
4	Eduardo Sturla	ARG	08:27:37	08:44:16	21
5	Rutger Beke	BEL	08:27:49	08:44:28	22
6	Raynard Tissink	SAF	08:28:56	08:45:37	23
7	Uwe Widmann	GER	08:31:00	08:47:45	29
8	Swen Sundberg	GER	08:39:35	08:56:37	47
9	Jason Shortis	AUS	08:39:38	08:56:40	48
10	Petr Vabrousek	CZE	08:46:24	09:03:40	74
11	James Cunnama	ZAF	08:48:05	09:05:24	81
12	Luke Bell	AUS	08:48:52	09:06:13	84
13	Sergio Marques	PRT	08:50:18	09:07:41	87
14	Bert Jammaer	BEL	08:59:28	09:17:10	110
15	Patrick Wallimann	SWI	09:01:03	09:18:48	123
16	Mike Schifferle	SWI	09:07:32	09:25:29	161
17	Andreas Bocherer	GER	09:12:47	09:30:55	184
18	Toby Radcliffe	GBR	09:17:32	09:35:49	206
19	Heinrich Sickl	AUT	09:28:26	09:47:05	253

Some interesting things:

• it’ll be interesting to see the race between the established Marino Vanhoenacker (with excellent results over the last 6 seasons) and the newcomer Tom Lowe (whose single results from IM Arizona last November would be good enough for a spot on the TOP 10).
• If both of them race, look for the pair of Rutger Beke and Rayard Tissink. Rutger hasn’t had too many good IM results lately, while Raynard has had a great IM Hawaii and is always racing strong in his home race. (However, Raynard is rumored to consider dropping out of the race.)

The Female Pro Field

I’ve got some predictions for the women’s field as well (again, for some previous race results, see my IM South Africa details post):

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Chrissie Wellington	GBR	08:40:49	08:57:54	1
2	Natascha Badmann	SWI	09:11:38	09:29:43	5
3	Rachel Joyce	GBR	09:24:11	09:42:41	16
4	Belinda Granger	AUS	09:28:48	09:47:27	23
5	Eva Dollinger	AUT	09:34:54	09:53:45	35
6	Martina Dogana	ITA	09:40:48	09:59:51	43
7	Yvette Grice	GBR	10:15:17	10:35:28	122
8	Nicole Woysch	GER	10:37:44	10:58:39	153
9	Simone Benz	SWI	10:55:57	11:17:28	171

Some things of note here:

• The real question for the women’s race is probably not if Chrissie is going to win but how far up in the men’s field she’s going to end up. Based on the ratings, I’m calling a TOP 10 finish, but not much higher up if the people from the pro list actually show up.
• I’m quite interested in how Natascha Badmann is going to perform: Her last posted race is more than four years ago, and she’s had some up and down years in between. If she has a solid race, she should be able to finish runner-up.
• However, Rachel Joyce and Belinda Granger are solid racers that are not too far off – and they will try to make the race for TOP3 interesting.