Swallow, Trautman superb in SA
Brit Jodie Swallow dominated the 2016 Standard Bank IRONMAN 70.3 South Africa with a fantastic effort in every discipline and has now won this race 6 times in a row. She also broke her own course record with a final time of 4:23:28. South African Matt Trautman captured the men's title and thus repeated his win from 2015. Trautman held off fellow South Africans Kyle Buckingham and James Cunnama who ended up in a tight battle for second place.
Jodie Swallow was first out of the water in 25:15 and that gave her a 3-minute advantage over Lucie Zelenkova and Susie Cheetham who reached the swim-run transition next.
Despite rainy conditions Swallow then really stepped on the throttle during the bike and pulled away from the rest of the competition. Her race best 2:26:01 bike split almost 9 minutes faster than the second best time of German pro Astrid Stienen and a massive 17 minutes and change better than the 2:43:21 time of Cheetham. Zelenkova only managed a 2:50:14, but it is unclear if she had encountered any troubles along the way. As it was Swallow had a massive lead by the time she reached T2 and only a complete meltdown would have cost her the title.
Swallow however was superb on the run too and ended up with a race best 1:27:28 split that gave her a dominating win and a course record time of 4:23:28. German Astrid Stienen was second in 4:42:00 and South African African Annah Watkinson rounded out the podium in 4:43:34.
In the men's race Brit pro Mark Threlfall was first out of the water in 24:42 with Will Clarke, Rudolf Naude and Kyle Buckingham about 30 seconds adrift. Matt Trautman and James Cunnama reached T2 in 26:02 and 26:07 respectively. A speedy transition by Trautman and a slow one by Threlfall compacted the front end of the race as the men started to jump on their bikes.
It did not take very long for Trautman to move into the lead and only Buckingham managed to stay within range of the leader. Threlfall and Naude fell back, but German Konstantin Bachor, South African Stuart Marais and Cunnama were chasing hard about 3.5 minutes adrift at the halfway point of the bike. Towards the end of the bike segment Trautman manged to pull away from Buckingham and reached T2 first with a race best 2:13:38 bike split and a 28 second lead on Buckingham. Cunnama was next almost 5.5 minutes later and he was followed closely by Bachor and Marais.
During the run Trautman steadily pulled away from Buckingham and Cunnama inched closer and closer to the second place. Marais was hanging tough too, but was unable to stay with Cunnama who really flew early on. The 1:17:34 run of Trautman was nor race best, but faster than anyone near the very front and allowed him to take the win in South Africa again. Cunnama and Buckingham battled to the very end with Buckingham ending up with the edge at the end and the runner-up spot.
Standard Bank IRONMAN 70.3 South Africa
Buffalo City, SA / January 24, 2016
1.2m swim / 56m bike / 13.1m run
Top women
1. Jodie Swallow (GBR) 4:23:28 ***
2. Astrid Stienen (GER) 4:42:00
3. Annah Watkinson (RSA) 4:43:34
4. Kirsten Schut (RSA) 4:52:36 * AG W25-29
5. Maria Cześnik (POL) 4:55:34
Top men
1. Matt Trautman (RSA) 4:01:52
2. Kyle Buckingham (RSA) 4:09:10
James Cunnama (RSA) 4:09:11
4. Stuart Marais (RSA) 4:10:22
5. Konstantin Bachor (GER) 4:13:54
*** = course record
