With great supremacy, South African Henri Schoeman and Dutch Els Visser have just won Ironman 70.3 Lapu-Lapu. On the Philippines, they gave no one a chance to keep them from victory and won by a margin of a few minutes.
It was a lonely day for Schoeman, as he took the lead as early as the swim and ended up seeing no one back for a few hours. Schoeman recorded 24:15 minutes in the water and was then followed at 1:03 minute by Thomas Bishop and 1:30 minute by Sam Osborne and Caleb Noble.
On the bike, Schoeman only managed to increase his lead; initially Bishop remained somewhat close, but in the closing stages he too had to acknowledge that Schoeman’s pace was too fast. Once in T2, Schoeman went 3:17 minutes ahead of Osborne and 3:34 minutes ahead of a slightly further back Bishop.
During the run, Schoeman finished the race in style and increased his lead a little more. In the end, he won the race in 4:02:31, while Osborne finished second in 4:06:40. Bishop finished third in 4:11:01.
Visser strikes again on the bike
In the women’s race it was a different story, as there it was not already clear after the swim that Visser would win. Trailing the fastest swimmer of the day – Zsanett Bragmayer who came out of the water after 26:04 minutes – Visser landed in eighth place into T2. Of course Visser was not worried, because by now a mediocre swim part is factored in and she knows that she can actually always count on a rock-solid bike part and more than solid run.
This was true once again today and after only twenty kilometers on the bike, Visser had already advanced to third place: only Bragmayer and Britain’s Lucy Byram were still a few minutes ahead of her at that point. That didn’t last very long either, as Visser was clearly riding the strongest of the entire field and after about sixty kilometers the Dutchwoman took over the lead in the race. Visser didn’t took it easy from there, because with a lead of eventually more than three minutes on her first two pursuers – at that time Anne Reischmann and Bragmayer – Visser entered T2.
During the concluding half marathon, Visser’s lead was no longer in danger anywhere. Only Reischmann, who came in second, was able to keep her gap with Visser about even. Bragmayer, who did finish third, finished more than 15 minutes behind.
Visser won the race in 4:21:29. Reischmann was second in 4:24:39 and Bragmayer third in 4:36:41.
