As I wrote in my lead-up articles to yesterday’s IRONMAN World Championships, I repeated the same phrase over and over again: Kona is full of surprises . Yesterday’s race was no exception.
The first, to me, being just how fast everyone went. The expected surf on the water never materialized, creating a much larger front pack starting the bike together. And once everyone realized that Sam Laidlow had gone up the road and was planning on distancing himself, the bike became classically frantic. That main pack had many moving parts to it, especially as Magnus Ditlev arrived to the party.
And then the wind kicked up a little, and the temperatures got hotter.
In the final 35 miles of the bike, Laidlow extended his lead out from 2:40 (over Ditlev) to almost a full six minutes (to Robert Kallin ). Ditlev had seemingly cracked — he was another minute back. The chase pack splintered apart, with Kristian Hogenhaug , Matthew Marquardt, Leon Chevalier, and Menno Koolhaas in the first bit of the remains, and Nick Thompson, Kristian Blummenfelt, Gregory Barnaby, Kacper Stepniak, Rudy Von Berg, Patrick Lange, and Antonio Benito Lopez bringing in the rear. That group had lost nearly four minutes in the same time period.
On paper, this was Laidlow’s race to lose. But, as Von Berg noted in his post-race interview, “ Kona hits different .”
Patrick Lange won this race on Ali’i Drive. “ Well, Ryan, they finish on Ali’i Drive. Of course he did .” No, I […]
Continue reading the original article at: www.slowtwitch.com