Winning in your own country is always nice, especially when you have had to let a race pass you by several times. So it was a great day for Lionel Sanders, who won Ironman 70.3 Mont-Tremblant yesterday.
“The poutine and maple syrup have been incomparable…a quick but nice visit back to Tremblant after a few year hiatus. Wouldn’t be a normal race here without some adversity and we got it today. Not able to deduce much data from the altitude camp but had a fun day out there nonetheless. Thanks for all the cheers!”
As is actually always the case, Sanders started the race lagging behind on the bike, as he could not keep up with the fastest men during the swim. Fastest swimmer of the day was American Luis Ortiz, who headed for T1 after 23:43. Sanders followed in eleventh and was then 1:47 minute behind.
On the bike, Sanders did what he had to do and well before the end of the bike, the Canadian had taken over the lead in the race. His lead only grew in the closing stages and so he returned to T2 with a 2:35 minute lead. Behind him followed a large group with big names like Cody Beals, Jackson Laundry and Taylor Reid.
Yet all those men behind Sanders could not prevent him from running towards victory, as in fact his lead remained consistently the same throughout the half marathon. Sanders won the race after 3:48:02 and then had a 2:14 minute lead over Mexican Hernandez. Laundry was third 2:44 minutes behind Sanders.
The women’s race was won by Canadian Tamara Jewett, who finished after 4:19:30. She won by a huge margin, as American Amber Ferreira came in second over nine minutes later and the also American Rachel Olsen was third over 12 minutes behind.
