It was a duel to savor; Jan Frodeno and Jonas Schomburg just put the heat on each other at Ironman 70.3 Andorra. In the end, it was Frodeno who struck in the second half of the run and took the victory.
It will be a welcome victory for Frodeno, who finally knows what winning is again after a period of long injury. He made his comeback this year, but some real top results weren’t there yet.
Schomburg was at least the man to watch in the beginning, as the German immediately made his ambitions clear in the water and when he was allowed to go to T1 after 22:41, he was 44 seconds ahead of Antony Costes and 47 seconds ahead of Frodeno. Costes would quickly drop away on the bike and then a phenomenal battle unfolded between the two German compatriots.
It was nice to see that Schomburg kept gaining rapidly on Frodeno on the climbs, sometimes up to more than two minutes, but Frodeno made up that time on the descents and on the flatter parts. This created a real ‘yo-yo effect’ that lasted until T2. There, by the way, it was still Schomburg in the lead, 1:08 minute ahead of Frodeno.
It then took Frodeno a good half of the 1/2 marathon to take over the lead, but then Schomburg was really done. Frodeno ran to victory from that point on and saw his lead increase considerably in the final kilometers. Frodeno won the race in a time of 4:25:47. Schomburg was second in 4:28:39 and Spaniard Jordi Montraveta Moya third in 4:32:50.
