My Week in Tri: 11 September

Ironman World Champs: Full Results here

Jan Frodeno was supposed to get his fairytale sendoff, but in this story, the antagonist (Laidlow) got his own fairytale beginning! Laidlow oscillates between cocky and likeable but he’s only 24! Here’s the summary: Around 12 men came out the water with a 1min gap on Lange and Ditlev, 2min gap on Wurf and Chevalier and over 5min back to Skipper. Frodeno’s trisuit tore in T1 😕 Mignon made an early break on the bike and Laidlow went with him. Frodeno started losing time early on the bike. Just before halfway on the bike, Mignon and Laidlow almost had a 3min lead over Weiss, Ditlev, von Berg and Currie. Weiss got penalized and needed to serve a 5min penalty and Mignon started to suffer. Laidlow got off the bike over 5min ahead of von Berg with Ditlev a further 40s back. Lange was 12m30 behind in 7th. By the half marathon mark, Laidlow was holding strong with only Lange making inroads but still 9min behind. The whole run everyone was waiting for Sam to blow up and walk! Sam Laidlow is your men’s Ironman Champion…love him or hate him but he knows how to perform on the biggest stages!

Men

🥇 Sam Laidlow (08:06:22)

🥈 Patrick Lange (08:10:17)

🥉 Magnus Ditlev (08:11:43)

Challenge Almere: Full Results here

De Boer got out the water with a 40s lead over Visser and Kiley. Visser and Kiley rode together the whole bike. They rode almost 12min quicker than Christensen and 13min quicker than de Boer. Visser struggled on the run but won with a large buffer. Kiley slipped to 5th. | Men: Koolhaas and Wojt had over 2min after the swim. Koolhaas lead till 90km when Svensson caught him and they rode together until Starykowicz and Lindars joined them in the final few km’s. Koolhaas ran exceptionally well and comfortably won in the end. Lindars failed to keep things together and was unable to stand and needed the barriers to move forward in the last 100m…painful to watch but he is fully recovered!

70.3 Sunshine Coast: Full Results here

Clarke and Hartnett were out the water 30s apart and rode the whole bike together eventually starting the run almost 4min ahead of Slater, Kahlefeldt and Perry. | Men: All the main contenders were out the water together and it stayed that way until the last 15km of the bike when Thompson broke away to start the run with a 60s lead. Free got to within 30s of him but couldn’t quite make the catch.

Karlovy Vary: Full Results here

Jorgensen had around 40s to make up after the swim. Her chase pack caught the lead pack half way on the bike with 12 ladies finishing the bike together. After 5km of running Jorgensen surged with only Klamer managing to hang on. The pair ran together with only a final sprint finish to determine the winner. Winning is a habit? | Men: A group of 8 formed by halfway on the bike. Shortly after this, Pearson made a break for it and hot T2 with a 30s lead. He had the 4th fastest run of the day enabling him to extend his lead to win.