Powerful and dominant: Kyle Smith and Marlene de Boer have just convincingly won Ironman 70.3 Cork in Ireland. For Dutch athlete De Boer, it marked her first victory as a professional athlete.
De Boer previously won virtually everything there is to win as an Age Grouper, but made the switch to the pro field last year. Top placings have not been achieved since then, but now she has her first victory. There was not a particularly strong field of athletes at the start in Cork and there were only six participants anyway, but it did not make the day any less magical for De Boer. Early in the bike leg she took over the lead in the race and she never relinquished it. She won the race in 4:24:41. Abigail Bedwell was second at 3:38 minutes behind and Rosie Weston third at 5:30 minutes behind. Bedwell and Weston are both British.
In the men’s race, then, the victory went to Kyle Smith: the New Zealander also took over the lead in the race early on during the bike and from then on he was able to race to victory unchallenged. He claimed it in a time of 3:42:13. South African Nicholas Quenet was second in 3:50:12 and Dane Kristoffer Visti Graae was third in 3:53:06.
