After Anne Reischmann won Ironman Cozumel late last year, the German athlete won Ironman South Africa today. Reischmann decided the race during the marathon.
Reischmann came out of the water eight minutes behind, but said she swam better than ever. Once on the bike, the fastest swimmer of the day – Marta Sanchez (57:28) – had long since flown by, but from seventh position, Reischmann started to catch up. That went pretty well because halfway through, Reischmann had already advanced to second position and her gap to Sanchez was only three minutes.
Reischmann kept pushing and saw her gap get smaller and smaller. Still, it took her some time to close the gap definitively, which she did after about 165 kilometers. From then on, Reischmann took over the lead in the race, but Sanchez did catch up until T2.
During the marathon, Reischmann immediately opened up a gap and already within a few kilometers her lead over Sanchez was one minute. Eventually that lead grew to about three minutes and from then on the difference between the two women remained virtually the same at all times.
Reischmann won the race in 8:51:41. Sanchez was second in 8:54:58 and Denmark’s Katrine Graesboll Christensen was third in 8:58:42. That was a spectacular performance, all the more so because Graseboll Christensen was tenth after the swim and was more than ten minutes behind at that point.
