It was a duel that will be talked about for a long time: for kilometers on end, Americans Trevor Foley and Sam Long ran side by side during Ironman 70.3 Pennsylvania. Only in the final stage was the decision made between the two men fighting for the win, and it fell in Foley’s favor.
What happened prior to the run – where it became nail-bitingly exciting – doesn’t really matter much. Both Foley (+2:27) and Long (+3:08) had to chase after the swim, and on the bike, both top athletes quickly managed to find each other. They didn’t just find each other, but also the men ahead of them, steadily moving up through the field. Halfway through the bike leg, the two were in fifth and sixth place, surrounded by other top athletes like Marc Dubrick, Rasmus Svenningsson, and Justin Riele – and more importantly, they had already closed to within 1:18 minutes of Matthew Marquardt, who was leading at that moment. In the second half, a large part of that deficit disappeared as well, and ultimately Long and Foley started the run together with those other men, about half a minute behind Marquardt.
Then the show truly began, and spectators could enjoy a wonderful spectacle. It took just over a kilometer for Long to run into the lead, and a few kilometers later, Foley caught up with him again. The men behind them began to lose more time, while Foley and Long whipped each other up to unprecedented heights and kept pushing until the bitter end.
When the final decision would be made became more tense by the meter. Ultimately, it happened around the sixteen-kilometer mark, though nothing was certain yet; Foley began to pull away second by second, but Long tried everything he could to hang on. However, it turned out to be an impossible task, and ultimately Foley took a beautiful victory in 3:42:25. Long finished second in 3:43:35, and Jason West completed the all-American podium with a time of 3:44:38.
