There was really no touching Svenja Thoes today. The German athlete may have been a bit behind after the swim, once she reached the front of the field, she stayed there and created a massive lead. After 9:18:48 hours, Thoes broke the tape at Ironman Nice. Belgium’s Alexandra Tondeur took second and Hungary’s Gabriella Zelinka rounded the podium.
It wasn’t all glory straight from the start, because after the swim, there was definitely some work to do for Thoes. She exited the water in fourth place, 2:24 minutes down to the leader: Genet. It took Thoes nearly half the bike part to catch up with Genet, but once she did, she managed to go off on her own. In a few kilometers she already created quite a big gap to Genet. Once Thoes racked her bike in T2, that time difference had gone up to 8:41 minutes.
On the run, Thoes put the hammer down. At the half-marathon point, she was leading by 15:53 minutes. Genet was still in second place at that point, but soon after that she started to struggle and disappeared from the front of the race. Now it was Tondeur running in second place, but more than 20 minutes behind Thoes after 25K of running.
In the final stretch, obviously, nobody was able to catch Thoes anymore. The German athlete claimed a massive victory. 23:29 minutes later, Tondeur crossed the line in second place. Zelinka completed the podium (+26:26).
