Ironman South Africa

In our preview I labeled the men's race as "up for grabs" and Marino Vanhoenacker was the man to seize the day. He was far to strong on the swim and the bike for anyone else and cruised home for the victory in a new course record and with a huge winning margin of nearly 15 minutes. Michael Gohner had a strong day and was the only man to run under the 3 hour mark to take the runner-up position. The "racing machine" that is Petr Vabrousek grabbed another podium while defending champion Stephen Bayliss had to settle for 4th.

1	VANHOENACKER, Marino	9/1/1	32/Professional	00:47:48	04:25:09	03:01:31	08:17:32
2	GOHNER, Michael	20/5/2	28/Professional	00:52:41	04:36:48	02:59:14	08:32:01
3	VABROUSEK, Petr	18/7/3	35/Professional	00:52:20	04:38:11	03:01:21	08:36:07
4	BAYLISS, Stephen	5/13/4	30/Professional	00:47:38	04:48:39	03:07:43	08:47:26
5	VENHORST, Andreas	23/15/5	29/Professional	00:55:48	04:46:09	03:05:23	08:51:52
6	CUNNAMA, James	12/11/6	25/Professional	00:51:50	04:41:42	03:18:23	08:55:24
7	RAUDSEPP, Raimo	19/14/7	27/Professional	00:52:22	04:47:11	03:13:43	08:57:19
8	OLIVIER, Marceau	4/3/8	36/Professional	00:46:57	04:31:36	03:36:44	08:59:09
9	PEDRAZA, Sebastian	13/6/9	36/Professional	00:52:02	04:38:38	03:29:11	09:03:19
10	VAN LINGEN, Lawrence	3/10/11	37/Professional	00:46:56	04:44:27	03:41:28	09:17:16

I believed this race would come down to two women, Bella Bayliss and Andrea Brede and boy was I wrong as both were not able to finish the marathon. Lucie Zelonkova was the star of the day swimming with the lead men and then blitzing the field on the bike to claim her first ironman victory. Like Vanhoenacker she was able to cruise to victory on the run unchallenged, also smashing the course record. Sonia Tajsich had the fastest women's run split to run her way into second place while Rachel Joyce faded on the run, but managed to claim the last spot on the podium.

1	ZELENKOVA, Lucie	6/16/10	34/Professional	00:47:40	04:58:43	03:26:17	09:16:32
2	TAJSICH, Sonja	30/25/13	33/Professional	01:01:03	05:04:07	03:18:09	09:27:59
3	JOYCE, Rachel	16/17/16	30/Professional	00:52:18	05:02:31	03:37:36	09:37:00
4	GORDON, Jacqui	29/26/18	36/Professional	00:59:25	05:08:48	03:34:25	09:46:26
5	KOLL, Caroline	27/30/19	32/Professional	00:58:11	05:23:48	03:42:00	10:08:35
6	DUPONT, Anne-marie	35/32/21	35/Professional	01:05:09	05:27:39	03:36:24	10:13:40
7	BULEY, Helen	34/31/23	29/Professional	01:02:40	05:22:10	03:50:21	10:21:37