McMahon, Steffen win Philippines
Brent McMahon of Canada continued his excellent 2014 70.3 season with a victory at Ironman 70.3 Cobra Philippines over Australian Sam Betten and Kiwi Cameron Brown.
McMahon and Betten emerged from the swim 1-2 with 23:45 and 23:42 splits 2 minutes ahead of Brown and 4 minutes up on Mat Burton. McMahon and Betten separated themselves from the field with the two best bike splits – 2:14:21 and 2:14:17. Then McMahon turned on his Olympic short course speed – 1:17:59 to Betten’s 1:26:03 — and the fight was over. McMahon finished in 3:59:05 with an 8:25 margin of victory over Betten and 16:39 over an off-form Cam Brown.
“It’s tough coming from a New Zealand winter with temps around 14-15 Celsius and then trying to run in 35 C!” write Brown in a post-race blog. My last few kilometers were survival and there was the occasional walk through the aid stations to try to get my body temperature down by throwing buckets of cold water over my head!”
As usual, Swiss powerhouse Steffen led the swim with a 25:35 split that 2 minutes better than Belinda Granger and Michelle Wu and 5 and 6 minutes better than Rebecca Hoschke and Dimity-Lee Duke.
Steffen put her stamp on the race with a race-fastest 2:29:10 bike split that was 2 minutes better than Hoschke, 5 minutes swifter than Granger, and 5 minutes quicker than Duke.
After setting the table so thoroughly, Steffen could be forgiven for taking it a bit easy on the run as she posted a 2nd-best 1:33:43 split that brought her to the finish in 4:32:34 with a 6 minutes margin of victory on Hoschke and 15:58 on 3td-place finisher Granger.
Ironman 70.3 Cobra Philippines
Cebu, Philippines
August 3, 2014
S 1.2 mi. / B 56 mi. / R 13.1 mi.
Results
Men
1. Brent McMahon (CAN) 3:59:05
2. Sam Betten (AUS) 4:07:30
3. Cameron Brown (NZL) 4:15:44
4. Matt Burton (AUS) 4:22:19
5. Assad Attamimi (AUS) 4:25:29
Women
1. Caroline Steffen (SUI) 4:32:34
2. Rebecca Hoschke (AUS) 4:38:34
3. Belinda Granger (AUS) 4:48:32
4. Dimity-Lee Duke (AUS) 4:49:54
5. Katja Meyer (USA) 4:54:24
