Britain's Lucy Gossage showed her patient side at Ironman Lanzarote last weekend, pacing herself carefully to ensure she was within reach of the leaders throughout the swim and bike, then opening the throttle in the run's final 10km to pull ahead of Germany's Susan Blatt and break the tape in 9:41:40.
Gossage left the water in third place, 33secs off the leader Stefanie Adam (BEL) who then managed to pull away from the rest of the field on the bike leg – which included two mountain climbs and increasingly fierce winds as the day wore on.
Once again Gossage entered transition in third place – just over 3mins behind Blatt and Adam – and started to reel them in, eventually catching the leader Blatt around the halfway point then opening up clear space between them with 10km to go. Blatt hung on for silver, while Corinne Abraham (GBR) came third, and Adam dropped back to sixth.
In the men's race, Romain Guillaume (FRA) won his second Ironman title with a time of 8:47:39, after leaving the water with the leaders then waiting until the mountain climbs on the bike before attacking hard.
Ahead of the race Guillaume's new coach Yves Cordier reportedly instructed him to take the opening 10km of his run a little more slowly than normal and ensure he had something left in the tank for the final stages – which he duly did. Silver and bronze was taken by Miguel Blanchart Tinto (ESP) and Bert Jammaer (BEL).
(Main image: Bob Foy)