American Ben Kanute followed up his runner-up finish at last weekend’s LA Triathlon with an impressive win at Ironman 70.3 Oceanside today, staying at or near the front through the entire race and holding off Denmark’s Miki Taagholt on the run to take the day.
Kanute led the men out of the water with six others on his heels – he was joined in T1 by Australian Sam Appleton, fellow Americans Eric Lagerstrom, Jason West and Dylan Gillespie, with Taagholt and Canada’s Brent McMahon also jumping on the bike in the lead group.
Out on the bike West and McMahon were dropped from the group and by the time the men hit T2 Lagerstrom was absent from the lead group, too. Kanute quickly moved to the front on the run and through 6 km he was 25 seconds ahead of Taagholt with Appleton 53 seconds back. That’s how things would stay as Kanute hit the finish line (after a very quick 1:11:39 half-marathon) in 3:46:32, over two minutes ahead of Taagholt (3:48:56). Appleton rounded out the podium in 3:49:35. American Chris Leiferman ran 1:11:45 to take fourth (3:50:25) with West running his way to fifth thanks to a 1:11:32 split (3:51:08).
