Last year, she already established her name with major victories at Challenge Mallorca and Challenge Barcelona, and today Cathia Schär continued that momentum: the Swiss athlete convincingly won Ironman 70.3 Valencia.
After the swim, it didn’t yet look like Schär would take the win; when she started the bike leg in sixth place, she faced a two-minute deficit with athletes like Alice Betto and Lena Meissner ahead of her. However, four women merged on the bike, and Schär took full advantage: along with Marjolaine Pierre, Meissner, and Sophie Evans, a leading quartet was formed that stayed together for a long time.
In the final kilometers, Pierre proved to be a bit too strong on the bike, creating a gap of about thirty seconds between the four women – and a recently joined Aurelia Boulanger – but the differences at this stage of the race were essentially negligible.
This became evident when Schär quickly surged to the lead during the run, taking the top spot within the first kilometer. Her competitors never truly had a chance to hook on; although they tried, Schär saw her lead grow rapidly. By the halfway point, the gap to Evans, who was running in second, had already increased to over two minutes. In the kilometers that followed, that margin only continued to widen.
Schär won the race in a time of 4:03:39, Evans took second in 4:06:25, and Meissner finished third in 4:06:58.
