Who's Hot and Who's Not from Ironman WA
The weather! - With temps soaring the pro field took a battering with athletes popping all over the place. Busselton turned it on to make the usual pre race talk of a flat course being easy a myth.
Christie Sym - Sym has taken a leaf out of the Richard Ussher book and jumped over to Ironman with a stunning result. At 25 years of age Sym will get better. HEr swim saw her 8 minutes off the back of the eventual winner in Crawford. If she can work on that the top step of the podium will beckon.
Scott Neyedli - Who? Scott Neyedli, the Scotsman who nearly stole the race had a blinder. His day was a blinder and nearly saw him beat the race favorite Patrick Vernay. A 2:51 marathon was a brave effort as he kept Vernay looking over his shoulder. The gap at the end stretched to a few minutes but he has stamped himself as a real talent.
Jimmy Johnsen - We love anyone who takes the race on and the Dane certainly did that. His bike split (4:30) caused the damage in the pro field early and running on an injured achilles he was able to hang on for third.
Brad Hosking - You probably don't know who he is but we can tell you he's a 41 year old firefighter from Perth. Oh yeah and he clocked an 8:52 on the day for the honour of the quickest age grouper. His time would have slotted him in 8th overall.
Not
Tim Berkel - Berkel was the defending champion and was sailing along on the main chase group. The wheels fell off shortly after that. Berkel's run split (4:07) pushed him out to 14th and was a spectacular plummet from 2nd in T2. Still he'll live to fight another day but must be rueing this lost opportunity to duke it out with Vernay.
The draftfest - It's been reported to us that there was widespread drafting. From the top end of the field to bottom. Have we all heard this before?
Kaon Cho - Cho lists himself as a pro but was well off the mark with a 12.28 overall time. His day read like an age grouper. A pro, really? Let's hope this was a one off.
Back
Comments (5)
by killa, 18 December 2009Of course WA's a draftfest - it's deadflat with nothing to break up the field so the drafters are out in force, even when they cook themselves they then draft to get home. Time to up the penalty to 15 mins.
by Lex, 09 December 2009I've got to agree with Liz, the tone of your comments regarding Kaon Cho rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe you need to loss the 'ironman' attitude...
by Damien Rankin, 09 December 2009Brad Hosking is a firie?!?
by firstoffthebike.com, 07 December 2009Geees that makes 3 Firies going sub 9 (that I know of) - Matty White, Luke Whitmore and Brad.
Seriously what dream job, the ability to train the house down, stay fit and have the most exciting job in the world. No wonder it's so hard to get into!!
Hi Liz, sure people are allowed to have bad days. But few 'pros' have days that are as non competitive as this one. We wrote we hoped it was a one off too. We give a lot of consideration as to what we write and provide comment as to how the pros race. We would have been the first to pump his tyres if he had a blinder but it goes both ways.
by liz, 07 December 2009Thanks for reading
re: comments about kaon cho - i have no idea who this guy is but aren't pros allowed to have bad days too? good on him for finishing. i think you guys should think before you type