Haskins breezes, Dye survives in Miami
Sarah Haskins won a cool $10,000 the easy way, marking time on the swim and the bike, skipping away on the run to take the first step forward in the Race to the Toyota Cup, at the Life Time Fitness Series opener in Miami.
Slowtwitch broadcast the race live (via text) and our call of the race is here.
It was a bit harder over in the men's edition of the Nautica South Beach Tri. After a bike leg inexplicably blown apart on Miami's flat terrain, the race came right back together in the final miles of the run before Cameron Dye could breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy his $10,000 victory.
Andy Potts, fresh off last week's win at the Oceanside 70.3—well, maybe not so fresh—no doubt knew he was in for some pain when he came out of the water with five of his contemporaries, including Andrew Yoder. Still, it wasn't Yoder—himself off a sparkling win at the Kemah Tri last week—that made life uncomfortable on the bike. Rather, it was last year's St. Anthony's winner Cameron Dye.
At 10 miles into the 25-mile bike course Dye had the pressure on. By 13 miles he had 7sec on Yoder, who himself had 7sec on Potts. By the end of the bike, Dye had demolished the field, cruising in with 1:40 gap on Potts and Yoder (who in turn had well more than a minute on the next set of riders).
But, in an odd quirk, each group of stragglers limping home on the bike contained successively faster runners. So, the race started to come back together again. Potts started chasing down Dye, Michael Weiss—4th off the bike—commenced chasing Potts, Filip Ospaly began his run at Weiss, and Kaleb VanOrt set his sights on Ospaly.
Yoder was the odd man out, having what was, for him, a lackluster bike. His mediocre legs on the bike got no fresher in the run.
Meanwhile, like a fish-eats-fish poster, faster runners in arrears starting gobbling up slower runners in front. Weiss passed Yoder, then Ospaly passed Yoder, then Ospaly passed Weiss. Ospaly then set his sights on Potts, who was himself catching Dye.
And that's how it ended—2km too soon for the runners—with Potts, who started the run 1:40 down, making up all but 24 seconds on Cameron Dye. Ospaly closed to within 17 seconds of Potts, with Weiss just 7sec further back. Yoder hung on for 4th, VanOrt ran himself into 5th.
In the women's race, it was the Sara(h)s, as it often is, with McLarty leading out of the swim and Haskins hot on her heels. They were inseparable during the race's first two legs, and then Haskins did what Haskins does: outrun everyone.
Nicole Kelleher continues to surprise and impress. The neo-pro who, from out of the blue, won collegiate nationals last year, ran herself into second place. Rebeccah Wassner, Alicia Kaye, and Laurel Wassner rounded out the top-5.
Related image gallery
A Nautica South Beach Triathlon gallery
Nautica South Beach Miami Triathlon
Miami, FL / April 10, 2011
1.5k swim / 40k bike /10k run
Men
1. Cameron Dye 1:49:22
2. Andy Potts 1:49:46
3. Filip Ospaly 1:50:03
4. Michael Weiss 1:50:10
5. Andrew Yoder 1:51:06
6. Kaleb VanOrt 1:51:42
7. Volodymyr Polikarpenko 1:52:08
Women
1. Sarah Haskins 1:58:56
2. Nicole Kelleher 2:02:35
3. Rebeccah Wassner 2:03:15
4. Alicia Kaye 2:03:30
5. Laurel Wassner 2:04:00
6. Becky Lavelle 2:05:05
