Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf broke her own course record by nearly five minutes at the Ironman 70.3 European Championship in Wiesbaden, southern Germany last weekend, with silver taken by British athlete Leanda Cave.
Defending champion Ryf, 26, trailed Cave out of the water by less than a minute, and quickly powered past her on the bike to take the lead. After a fairly conservatively run for the first 15km, the Swiss athlete then gave it a final surge to finish in 4:26:12.
Further back, Cave came off the bike fifth in a chase pack that also included fellow Brit Liz Blatchford, Camilla Pedersen (DEN) and Laura Philipp (GER). By the 3km point Cave had overtaken Philipp for second place, and she went on to cross the line in 4:34:50.
“The bike course was a little bit of shock to me, but I am happy with my race,” said Cave afterwards. Philipp took third after a tough running battle with a resurgent Pedersen (only recently back into professional racing after a serious bike accident), finishing just 34secs in front of the Dane.
In the men’s race, Belgium’s Bart Aernouts was riding high after last month's victory at Ironman Nice. The Belgian left the water around 2mins behind the leader Manuel Küng (SUI), waiting patiently until 60km into the bike before he made his move to overtake the leaders, Pieter Heemeryck (NED) and Maurice Clavel (GER).
Aernouts, 30, reached T2 with a 3min lead over the chase pack, going on to post a solid run to cross the line in 4:05:27. Peter Robertson (AUS) put in the day’s fastest run (1:13:16) to overtake Clavel with 3km to go and nab silver from the German.
Top five pro men:
1
Bart Aernouts
BEL
4:05:27
2
Peter Robertson
AUS
4:08:15
3
Maurice Clavel
GER
4:08:34
4
Ruedi Wild
SUI
4:09:33
5
Tim Van Berkel
AUS
4:10:07
ArrayTop five pro women:
1
Daniela Ryf
SUI
4:26:12
2
Leanda Cave
GBR
4:34:50
3
Laura Philipp
GER
4:36:23
4
Camilla Pedersen
DEN
4:36:57
5
Liz Blatchford
AUS
4:41:07
ArrayFor the full results head here.
(Images: Ironman)