Germany’s Laura Philipp just took a strong win thanks to a great run at the Ironman European Championship in Finland. It was an exciting battle up until the marathon, as the three podium finishers stayed together for the entire bike part. Once they switched to running, however, Philipp swiftly took off. It was America’s Jocelyn McCauley who took home silver (+20:57) and Swiss’ Imogen Simmonds who settled for bronze (+24:23). Philipp crossed the line after an impressive race time of 8:38:29 hour.
That it was going to be a nice battle between three ladies, was already obvious after the swim, as McCauley, Philipp and Simmonds were all in front together. It was McCauley who took the lead with a very small advantage, clocking 53:40 minutes on the swim. Over 180 km on the bike, the three stayed together. While it seemed like one of them tried to take off occasionally, none of them succeeded to drop the others. That meant all three entered T2 simultaneously, but due to a one-minute penalty that Simmonds was given for failing to dismount in time, she lost the connection a little before going out on the marathon. The women clocked a fast bike split of 4:48:12 hour.
Philipp didn’t feel like waiting any longer to make a real move, as the German soon took off and left McCauley behind. Over 42.2 km she only managed to extend her lead more and with an incredible marathon time of 2:52:45 hour she was the one who got to lift the tape. McCauley took second (+20:57) and Simmonds settled for third (+24:23), after she was overtaken in the final part.
