Britain’s Emma Pallant-Browne finished third at the World Championship Ironman 70.3 last weekend, maybe a little bit disappointed after her swim and bike of that day, which left her with no prospect of an even higher final ranking. Today she was totally back on track; she proved to be the strongest athlete of the day by winning Ironman 70.3 Mossel Bay.
The competition was not very big for Pallant-Browne, as in the end five women crossed the finish line and real appealing names were missing. When Pallant-Browne took the victory in a time of 4:23:26, she had to wait a long time before the number two and three crossed the line. South African Magda Niewoudt was second at 8:59 minutes behind and Norwegian Julie Aspesletten third at 20:05 minutes. Pallant-Browne took over the lead in the race in the early stages of the bike already and only extended her lead from then on.
There were not very many athletes participating in the men’s race either, but that race did turn into an spectacular thriller. For a long time it looked like Matt Trautman would win, but in the closing stages it was Bradley Weiss who came alongside and ran to victory in a time of 3:50:37. Trautman followed only 44 seconds behind. Cameron MacNair finished third but crossed the line nearly 16 minutes after Weiss.
