German Nicolas Mann has just took a phenomenal victory at Ironman 70.3 Mallorca. After a blood-curdling final, the top three men stayed within 23 seconds of each other, but so it was Mann who triumphed.
In a race marked by many penalties on the bike, initially many of the favorites stayed together on the bike. Yet a number of favorites also soon lost connection – including Youri Keulen and Gustav Iden for example – because they received penalties or couldn’t handle the pace.
What followed was a race in which Frenchman Mathis Margirier went on a solo adventure in the closing stages of the bike and started the half marathon with a minute’s lead over Jan Stratmann, Nicolas Mann, Gregory Barnaby and Kristian Hogenhaug. For a long time it seemed that Margirier would take the win, but with a few kilometers to go Mann and Stratmann got closer and closer to the leader and at the 18-kilometer point they even passed him. In the process, Mann ran so strongly that he also distanced himself from Stratmann in the final kilometers and thus ran to victory.
Mann won the race in a time of 3:49:19 and still had to sprint for it, as Stratmann finished second just eight seconds later. Barnaby, who also passed Margirier in the closing stages, finished third at 23 seconds from the winner.
