Beautiful victories for Jason West and Paula Findlay, who just triumphed at Ironman 70.3 Los Cabos. West struck with an impressive run, while Findlay already laid the foundation of her victory early during the bike.
After the swim, American Marc Dubrick led the way in the men’s race; thanks to a swim time of 24:28, he came out of the water first, followed fifty seconds later by Jason West, Eric Lagerstrom, Brennen Smith and Fabian Villanueva Moehl, among others. Of these men, Laundry and West rode together to the leader, but in the end, on the bike, no one proved equal to Laundry. The Canadian took off solo and also came back on his own in T2. He then had a 1:40 minute lead over the same men who were in front during the swim.
During the run, however, Laundry’s lead disappeared very quickly, mainly because West was running at a very fast pace. At some points he even ran faster than twenty kilometers per hour and after only a few kilometers he had not only caught up with Laundry, but West had already built up a lead of more than a minute. During the remaining kilometers, his lead only increased, eventually winning in a time of 3:43:04. Dubrick was second in 3:47:51 and Laundry third in 3:51:06.
Women’s race dominated by Paula Findlay
In the women’s race, the swim was dominated – completely as expected – by Sara Perez Sala: the Spanish athlete returned to shore after 26:02 minutes and then had a lead of a minute and a half over Grace Alexander and Lisa Perterer. Paula Findlay followed as the fourth woman and was 2:36 minutes behind. As was the case with the men, Findlay also rode very quickly to the head of the race and then rode away on her own. By the time she returned to T2, her lead over Perterer had increased to 3:38 minutes, with Perez Sala following a few seconds later. The gap to the fourth woman, Jacky Hering at that point, had already grown to nearly 15 minutes.
Consequently, the run became not very exciting anymore; it was already clear that Findlay would win the race. She did so in a time of 4:09:50. Perterer finished second in 4:13:46 and Perez Sala third in 4:20:55.
