It was Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf and America’s Rudy von Berg who won today’s Ironman 70.3 Switzerland. Behind Von Berg – who needed 3:42:18 to cross the finish line – Switzerland’s Ruedi Wild took second (+6:11) and Germany’s Felix Hentschel completed the podium (+6:58). Ryf shared the podium with another Swiss athlete, Julie Derron (+7:02) and Germany’s Anne Reichmann (+11:40). Ryf needed 4:09:35 to stay ahead of, among others, these two women.
Von Berg runs strong, Salvisberg drops back
Thanks to a swim in 21:41 minutes, Salvisberg was the fastest swimmer of the day. Von Berg reached his bike 50 seconds later in second place. In third place, it was Austria’s Martin Bader who got to jump on his bike. After about 20 km of cycling, Salvisberg saw Von Berg fly by, but he decided to not let the American take off on his own. The two rode together for another 60 km before Von Berg dropped the Swiss athlete. With an advantage of 1:46 on Salvisberg – who was still the first chaser – Von Berg racked his bike back in T2.
On the run, Von Berg soon extended his lead. After about 10 km, Salvisberg was already over three minutes behind. In the mean time, Wild started to form a threat for Salvisberg. In the second part of the half-marathon, Salvisberg – who finished in 22nd place during the Olympics in Tokyo only weeks ago – dropped back quickly. That meant Wild ran to a second place and Hentschel moved up to third. These positions remained unchanged until the finish line, and thus it was Von Berg taking the day, Wild finishing with silver and Hentschel taking home bronze.
Ryf waits to escape until final km of the bike
With German’s Katharina Kruger right in her feet, Ryf completed the swim in 24:54. It was to be expected that Ryf would take off on the bike, but she waited a while to do so, even riding behind Dane Line Thams for a while. After 60 km, Ryf started to really push the pace, though, as Thams dropped back. While grabbing her running shoes out of the bag in T2, Ryf enjoyed a four-minute lead to Thams. On the run, Ryf didn’t even need to work too hard in order to maintain her lead. While Derron and Thams swapped positions for second and third place behind her, Ryf kept her quick pace and claimed the win after a half-marathon of 1:23:42. Derron claimed the silver medal and Reischmann earned bronze, as she passed Thams in the final km’s of the run.
