Well under nine hours and in the lead from start to finish: Lisa Norden experienced a great day at Ironman Kalmar today. In her home country, the Swedish athlete took the lead immediately during the swim and that situation remained unchanged until the finish.
After 56:12 minutes – so not a particularly fast swim time – Norden came back out of the water and by then she had a 46-second lead over Denmark’s Michelle Vesterby, France’s Justine Mathieux and Britain’s Susie Cheetham. Those were immediately also the day’s protagonists, though so really everything revolved around Norden.
Norden, known for her always strong cycling part, saw her lead grow quickly on the bike and in fact it did so for 180 kilometers. Once back in T2, her lead over Mathieux was almost ten minutes, while Cheetham followed at eleven minutes and Vesterby, at that time overtaken by Laura Zimmerman, started the marathon over fifteen minutes behind.
The marathon did not really become exciting anymore; Norden did not falter anywhere, ran strong and secured her victory after 8:47:03. Mathieux finished second in 8:54:21 and Cheetham third in 8:56:17.
