Ryf, Jan Frodeno shine

Jan Frodeno and Daniela Ryf of the Bahrain Endurance Elite 13 team won the male and female categories at Ironman 70.3 Dubai in the first leg of the Nasser Bin Hamad Triple Crown series on Friday and the chance of winning a U$1 million if they win the second leg in Austria and the third in Bahrain late in the year.

Both were unanimous pre-race favourites due to their dominance of last year’s races, yet they still needed to cross this finish line first.

Blustery winds and ocean swells forced organisers to shorten the swimming course to 1,200 meters, with an additional 750 meters to run to transition. The 90km cycle loop presented them with a tailwind out of the city and a headwind of up to 20 miles per hour coming back in followed by a 7km loop done three times on unshaded joggong paths to the finish line.

Olympic gold medalist and Ironman world champion Frodeno exited the swim in front and never gave up the lead through a speedy 2-hour, 2-minute bike split, coming off the bike with a 3-minute cushion. He extended his lead to almost seven minutes by the time he ran through the tape in 3 hours, 34 minutes, 48 seconds.

Frodeno said, “The conditions were tough but the course is very fast and it ended as a perfect day for me.”

Fellow Ironman World Champion and Ironman 70.3 World Champion Ryf faced a little more challenge to her lead on the women’s side. Swiss compatriot Caroline Steffen was just behind Ryf after the swim and took an early lead on the bike, but Ryf took the lead in the final third of the cycling and ran well to finish two minutes ahead at the end finishing in 4 hours, 1 minute, 9 seconds.

Ryf said, “I’m really happy it’s a great start and compliments to Caroline who did really good in the first 50km on the bike and pushing the pace. I decided to push a little bit harder and with the wind and the carpet on the floor the run felt quite slow, but delighted to win”

Steffen ran a steady pace for most of the run. However, she faced down a hard-charging Kaisa Lehtonen who finished third.

Terenzo Bozzone had his own face-off with Bart Aernouts. The two were locked shoulder-to-shoulder on the run in fourth and fifth place, chasing down third-placed Jaroslav Kovacic who eventually was fifth and in the end only three seconds separated the two, with Aernouts gaining the upper hand and the final spot on the podium.

Sara Gross swam for the Team UAE relay team. Together with runner Khaleifa Mohamed Alnuaimi and pro cyclist Mohammed Al Mansouri and took the top spot in the relay division.

David Plese and Eric Watson finished in 11th and 13th place respectively and Team captain HH Shaikh Nasser Bin Hamad Al Khalifa was fourth in the age 25-29 years category as Bahrain Endurance starting the year in fine form.