Sweden’s Rasmus Svenningsson used an all-around strong performance to nail the men’s win at Ironman Lake Placid today, finishing well clear of France’s Arnaud Guilloux, who managed to hold off a late-race surge by Great Britain’s Joe Skipper.
Hungary’s Balazs Csoke led a group of four out of the two-loop swim in Mirror Lake in Lake Placid in 46:44, with Brazil’s Thiago Dario Vinhall and Igor Amorelli a few seconds behind, and France’s Romain Guillaume rounding out the lead group nine seconds back. Svenningsson, who won his age group in Kona in 2018, was 2:45 back in eighth, while Skipper hit T1 in 12th place, 5:18 behind Csoke.
Guillaume would lead the way through the first 60 km of the bike, but nearing the end of the first of two loops Guilloux and Svenningsson moved up to the front, too. Those three steadily pulled away from the rest of the field, but it was Svenningsson who turned out to be the powerhouse on the bike, pulling clear on the final long climb back up to Lake Placid and hitting T2 with a lead of 2:11 on Guilloux and 4:25 on Guillaume. Skipper hit T2 in fourth, but was 12:42 down, with American Matt Russell another two minutes back.
Svenninngsson never looked back, running a solid 2:51 marathon to nail the win in 8:13:25. Guillaume would fade during the run, leaving Skipper to chase Guilloux for second. The Brit would steadily close the gap on the Frenchman, but Guilloux was able to just hang on for second, finising in 8:23:13, just 48 seconds ahead of Skipper (8:24:01), who ran a 2:49 marathon. France’s Antoine Mechin managed to run his way to fourth (8:32:43), while American Kevin Portman was fifth in 8:34:12.
