Frances Denis Chevrot managed to catch Sweden’s Rasmus Svenningsson in the final meters of the race to take Ironman Austria-Karnten in dramatic style today, overcoming an almost 10-minute deficit to take the title. Germany’s Laura Philipp, on the other hand, led virtually from start to finish to win the women’s race by a huge 45-minute margin.
In the men’s race it was former Polish Olympian Lukasz Wojt who dominated the swim, finishing the first leg in a speedy 45:14, 2:15 ahead of Chevrot and a large group that included amongst others Dane Mathias Lyngso Petersen and Swede Patrik Nilsson. Those two were leading a group of 10 on the bike through the 45 km timing point, but by 90 km Svenningsson and France’s Arnaud Guilloux had opened up a 24-second gap to the group. From there the gap continued to grow and by the end the ride the Swede and the Frenchman were 9:35 ahead of the group that included Petersen, Chevrot and Nilsson.
Guilloux initially pulled ahead on the run, holding a lead of 1:09 on Svenningsson through the halfway point, while Chevrot had trimmed the lead down to 5:14. Over the next 10 km Guilloux would falter and it was Svenningsson who was in front with 10 km to go – at that point he was 1:13 ahead of Guilloux and 1:40 up on Chevrot. With 5 km to go the lead was down to 24 seconds and by the finish Chevrot had managed move to the front to take the win by the same margin. Chevrot ran a 2:35:19 marathon to finish in 7:51:09, with Svenningsson crossing the line in 7:51:34, Guilloux hung on for third in 7:58:47. France’s William Mennesson would take fourth in 8:04:28 and Austria’s Michael Weiss rounded out the top five in 8:04:46.
Blowout win for Philipp
Philipp’s domination of the day saw her lead out of the water with Great Britain’s Chantal Cummings and Croatia’s Zeljka Saban Millicic close behind, but that’s the only time she had any company on the speedy course in Klagenfurt. Cummings was 3:42 behind at 45 km, with Millicic 7:15 back at that point. By 90 km Philipp was 6:05 ahead of Cummings and by the end of the ride her lead was up to 15:51 on the Brit, with Austria’s Gabriele Obmann coming off the bike in third place, 16:45 behind and Germany’s Katharina Grohmann in fourth at 21:51.
On the run Philipp continued to surge away from the rest of the women and by the time she was done her incredible 2:44:49 marathon split saw her cross the line in 8:35:33. Grohmann would take second in 9:20:44, over 45 minutes behind her countrywoman, while Obmann would hang tough to round out the podium in 9:22:20.
You can find the results from today’s racing in Austria here.
