Whereas the men’s race turned out to be a tremendously exciting one, the sting was quickly taken out of the women’s race at Ironman 70.3 Lanzarote. Anne Haug proved far too strong for her opponents and ran very easily to victory.
During the swim, a leading group of four women immediately formed and left the water at the same time: after 26:00 minutes, Kate Curran, India Lee, Anne Haug and Fabia Maramotti were the first to go to T1 for their transition. The gap on the first pursuers was already over one minute.
On the bike Haug showed once again why she wins so many races: only Lee could keep up and stayed that way for quite a while. Yet after about fifty kilometers a gap opened up and Lee had to let go of the German Haug. From that point on, things did go fast, because when Haug returned to T2 to start her half marathon, her lead had increased to 1:35 on Lee and already 8:45 minutes on the third woman, Elisabetta Curridori.
Even during the run, the tension in the race did not return; quite the contrary, as Haug only increased her lead very quickly. In the end, she won the race in a time of 4:16:47 and thus by a large margin. Lee eventually finished second and by then her deficit had increased to 11:50 minutes. Curridori finished third at 19:54 minutes behind.
