Volcano disrupts IM South Africa
Gerrit Schellens of Belgium, a two time Ironman SA title holder, was the first PRO to contact the organisers and withdraw. A disappointed Schellens has returned to South Africa twice since winning in 2006 and 2007 but hasn’t been able to race due to injuries. He is in fine form this year and was looking at making it a hat-trick in 2010 – going head to head with his old rival, Raynard Tissink (RSA) and up and coming young South African, James Cunnama.
Mathias Hecht (SUI) has also been left stranded but is doing his best to get on a flight. He will try to make the journey to Port Elizabeth in the next few days but with the backlog of flights his chances of competing at IMSA are looking bleak. Hecht is one of the athletes expected to make a big impact at this year’s event and has proven credentials as he finished 13th at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii and 5th at Ironman Germany in 2009.
Tine Deckers of Belgium arrived in Port Elizabeth last Thursday and managed to avoid the chaos caused by the cancellation of flights. Stephen and Bella Bayliss have been training with Team TBB in Asia and will be flying out from there and have also managed to avoid being effected by the volcano.
This year sees 209 European athletes registered for the race with the majority in doubt as European flights are grounded. The European contingent always adds an extra dimension to the event and testament to this fact is that four of the five previous male winners are European and all three of the previous female winners hail from Europe
Comments (1)
by Peter, 30 April 2010It was a great race, over a great course. One of the best bike courses I have ridden. Weather was perfect, though the swim was a bit choppy. Virtually all European athletes made the trip, the volcano wasn't the problem it could have been, but some Europeans did arrive very close to the race.
I recommend this race.