It was very exciting until the very last meters of Ironman 70.3 Cascais, where Lizzie Rayner just managed to win with a lead of just two seconds over Jeanne Collonge.
The race, in which only pro women competed in addition to Age Groupers, had a blistering denouement that didn’t was decided until the very last moment. Already during the swim quite a few women were close together, with Lisa Perterer leading the field (26:23) and behind her Stephanie Clutterbuck, Leana Bissig, Rayner and also Gabrielle Lumkes.
On the bike, initially Clutterbuck and Perterer stayed away together, as halfway through the race they held a lead of just under a minute and a half over the first three chasers: those were still Bissig and Rayner, but Lumkes had dropped out while her place had just been taken by Switzerland’s Nina Derron.
Still, Clutterbuck apparently didn’t think it was enough to ride T2 in that order, because in the second half she really started to hit home, taking the lead solo and seeing her lead in T2 grow to over four minutes on Rayner, Derron and also Bissig
Clutterbuck therefore began the run with what looked like a comfortable margin, but Rayner trimmed minutes off her deficit and halfway the run she had even taken over the lead in the race. Yet at that point Derron was also holding up well, just 25 seconds behind the leader, but it was also Collonge who was advancing, running by far the fastest and had already advanced to fifth place at 2:20 minutes behind.
In the last kilometer the race was still completely open, as it was Rayner in the lead, with Collonge moved up to second place, just seven seconds behind Rayner. Yet her gap proved just too a little too big as Rayner won the race in 4:15:18 and Collonge followed in second in 4:15:20. Bissig eventually finished third in 4:16:28.
