TriTrivia 2016

After Christmas I’ll be working on the TriRating Report 2016, my analysis of the results of at the 2016 Ironman-distance racing and interesting information about the athletes that played a major role in 2016. You can already pre-order it here (or use the link https://gum.co/2016RatingReport).

As a preview to the content of the Report, here are a few #TriTrivia2016 questions. If you have a problem answering the questions, I have posted my answers at the bottom of this post.

Questions

1. As the fastest Ironman races this year are pretty obvious (and no one who was in Roth will forget them soon), who had the second fastest Ironman-distance races in 2016 (male & female)?
2. Which North American athletes won an Ironman race in Europe or the Australian continent (Australia and New Zealand)?
   a) Four North American Athletes winning an Ironman in Europe
   b) Two North American Athletes winning an Ironman on the Australian continent
3. There are three “active IM three-peats” (one athlete winning the same Ironman race in 2014, 15 and 16). Can you name them (athlete, race)?
4. Who overcame the biggest deficits in T2 to win a 2016 Ironman (male & female athlete at which races)?
5. Who are the athletes with the most wins on the IM-distance and the 70.3 distance in 2016?
6. Which were the closest 2016 IM-distance races (male and female winners at which races)?
7. We saw a number of continental records (fastest times in an IM-distance race) this year. Can you name all four (continent, male/female, athlete)?
8. In winning Kona 2016, where did Daniela and Jan post the fastest times for the individual legs (swim, bike or run)?
9. The most successful long-distance nations are the USA, Germany, Australia and Great Britain. Who has posted the fastest 2016 IM-distance finishes (male and female) from each of these nations?
10. Who posted the fastest marathons in a full IM-distance race in 2016 (male & female)?

All the answers to these questions can be found in my TriRating Report 2016, available for pre-order here.

The Report will have about 70 pages, including:

• Female and Male Athletes of the Year and Rookies of the Year
• Top 10 Ratings (overall and individually for swim, bike and run)
• Top 10 Performances (by “clock time” and by my normalized times)
• 2016 Money List
• Looking forward to the 2017 Racing season and Kona 2017

and a ton of race results and all rated athletes!

Answers

1. Lionel Sanders was the second fastest male – he finished IM Arizona in 7:44:29. For the women, the second fastest was Mirinda Carfrae who finished IM Austria in 8:41:17. These two races were also the fastest finished in Ironman-branded races, as the fastest ones were posted at Challenge Roth by Daniela Ryf (8:22:04) and Jan Frodeno (7:35:39). [back to questions]
2. The four North Americans winning a European IM were Jesse Thomas in Lanzarote, Mary Beth Ellis in Netherlands, Darbi Roberts in Wales and Jocelyn McCauley in Mallorca. There two Americans winning on the Australian continent were Meredith Kessler at IM New Zealand and Beth Gerdes at IM Australia. [back to questions]
3. Meredith Kessler has two of the “three-peats”, she has won IM Arizona in the last three years and IM New Zealand even for the last five years. The only other athlete with an “active three-peat” in Ironman races is Diana Riesler, she has won IM Malaysia in 2014, 15 and 16. (There are more streaks in 70.3s, the longest active one is probably Jodie Swallow having won 70.3 South Africa for the last six years!) [back to questions]
4. There are very few cases where a gap of more than 10 minutes in T2 was overcome to win the race. In 2016 there were two on the male side: Tim Van Berkel closing a gap of 14:01 to win IM Cairns, and Patrik Lange (largest gap by a male winner) had a gap of 14:50 when winning IM Texas.
   On the female side, there were Beth Gerdes (gap of 12:19 to win IM Australia), Darbi Roberts (12:27 at IM Wales), Kaisa Lehtonen (12:38 at IM South Africa), and Kristin Möller. Kristin had the biggest T2 gap in 2016, she was able to overcome a gap of 15:45 to win IM Sweden. [back to questions]
5. There were nine athletes that won two IM-distance races in 2016: Liz Lyles, Melissa Hauschildt, Marino Vanhoenacker, Mary Beth Ellis, Meredith Kessler, Patrik Nilsson, Jan Frodeno, Fredrik Croneborg and Jan Raphael. Only Daniela Ryf managed to win three (Challenge Roth, Ironman Switzerland and IM Hawaii) – all of them with a sub-9 time!
   The “winningest” athlete on the 70.3 distance of 2016 is Lionel Sanders: He won five races over the middle distance. With Heather Wurtele, Annabel Luxford and Andreas Dreitz there were three athletes with four wins.
   [back to questions]
6. The closest female race was at Challenge Venice, where Erika Csomor won with 42 seconds in front of Martina Dogana. On the IM side it was IM Lanzarote, Tine Holst won with a margin of 2:18 over Alexandra Tondeur.
   The closest race on the male side was Challenge Poznan, 16 seconds separated Denis Sketako and Sergio Marques. The closest IM race was IM Malaysia, Fredrik Croneborg had a 33 seconds advantage over Thiago Vinhal. [back to questions]
7. The four “continental records” (fastest IM-distance finishes by an athlete from that continent) were the male North American record (Lionel Sanders 7:44:29 from IM Arizona; Andy Potts and Brent McMahon – twice! – were also faster than the old record by Andy Starykowicz), the male Australian continent record (Terenzo Bozzone winning IM Western Australia in 7:51:26, beating the 2007 time by Chris McCormack), the male European record (Jan Frodeno going 7:35:39 at Challenge Roth, beating the old world record by Andreas Raelert) and the female African record (Annah Watkinson’s 9:12:13 at IM Barcelona, improving the 2013 record by Dianne Emery by more than 25 minutes). [back to questions]
   NB: Blog reader Rob pointed out that Paula Newby-Fraser is also an African athlete. Though she was racing for the US in the latter part of her career, she won Kona a number of times racing for Zimbabwe. For example, she won Kona in 1992 in 8:55:28, and also finished IM Germany (at that time still in Roth) in 8:55:00. So Paula is still the fastest female African athlete!
8. Daniela had two fastest legs: After being 4 seconds behind on the swim, she had the fastest bike (by 8:05) and run legs (by 1:29).  Jan was in the lead or close the front for most of the day, but he didn’t have any of the fastest legs (his differences: 2 seconds on the swim to Harry Wilshire, 5:56 to Boris Stein on the bike, and 5:49 to Patrick Lange on the run). [back to questions]
9. Here are the fastest times for these nations:
   AUS female: Mirinda Carfrae (8:41:17 at IM Austria on 2016-06-26)
   AUS male: Nick Kastelein (8:05:03 at Challenge Roth on 2016-07-17)
   GBR female: Laura Siddall (8:51:59, Challenge Roth on 2016-07-17)
   GBR male: Joe Skipper (7:56.23, Challenge Roth on 2016-07-17)
   GER female: Astrid Stienen (8:54:27 at IM Barcelona on 2016-10-02)
   GER male: Jan Frodeno (7:35:39 at Challenge Roth on 2016-07-17)
   USA female: Meredith Kessler (8:48:23 at IM Arizona on 2016-11-20)
   USA male: Andy Potts (7:55:12 at IM Western Australia on 2016-12-04)
10. The fastest marathons in 2016 IM-distance races were by Joe Skipper (2:38:52 in Challenge Roth) and by Mirinda Carfrae (2:49:06 at IM Austria).