It’s really not the first time it’s happened – and it won’t be the last – but an athlete who takes the lead right from the start, then doesn’t see anyone back all day and finally finishes with a lead of over forty minutes is pretty rare. Anne Haug just experienced it at Ironman Lanzarote, which she thus won with awe-inspiring supremacy.
True: Haug was not competing against the very strongest field in Lanzarote, but then you still have to do it to win with such enormous supremacy. Already after the swim (54:26) the German former World Champion was almost five minutes ahead of her first pursuers and on the leaden bike course that lead was extended to almost twenty minutes. Lydia Dant followed second back in T2 and Jeanne Collonge, at almost 23 minutes, third.
So the excitement in the marathon was actually gone from the very first meters, all the more so because that is Haug’s best part. She did not take it easy, however, as she completed the 42-plus kilometers in 2:49:08, eventually finishing in an overall time of 9:06:40. Collonge finished second in 9:50:24 and Dant third in 9:54:54.
