Helle Frederiksen combined a 2nd-best swim, women’s-best bike leg and 2nd-best run and Tim Don ran past long-time race leader Timothy O’Donnell at the 15 kilometer mark to take the $20,000 top prizes at Ironman 70.3 Brazil.

After trailing U.S. competitor Haley Chura by 3 seconds after the swim, Frederiksen sailed to a 12 minutes 59 seconds margin of victory over Sofie Goos of Belgium and 14 minutes flat over Ruth Brennan Morey of the U.S., who had stellar bike and run splits to overcome a 34:19 swim to take the final spot on the podium.

“This is a satisfying win for me for reasons other than the obvious,” Frederiksen wrote to Slowtwitch. “Since the turn of the year I’ve been a little unsettled with lots of travel and change of environment. Challenge Dubai [where she finished 3rd] showed this I think and coming here to Brasilia I wanted to showcase where I am at, at the moment.”

Don overcame O’Donnell’s 2 minute lead after the bike with a 1:13:20 half marathon run that gave the Great Briton a 53 seconds margin of victory at the race that also serves as the Latin America 70.3 Championship. "To race well [and win] in Monterrey 70.3 and Brazil 70.3 and secure points for the 70.3 World Champs and Kona is a great early season," Don told Slowtwitch.

Don's daughter Matilda back home was even more enthusiastic than her dad about the victory. As Tim’s wife and Matilda’s mom Kelly wrote on Facebook: “First words out of Matilda's mouth were, ‘Oh good! We can go to Disneyland now!!’”

WOMEN

As expected, U.S. swim star Haley Chura led out of the water in 25:24, followed closely by Helle Frederiksen of Denmark. After a hefty 2:11 gap came a chase pack of four including Rachel Joyce of Great Britain, Ricarda Lisk of Germany, Valentina Carvallo of Chile, and Carolina Furriela of Brazil. Three and a half minutes down was a third pack that included Brazilians Vanessa Giannini, Bruna Mahn and Ariane Monticeli as well as Belgian Sofie Goos.

At 9k on the bike leg, Frederiksen led Chura by 2 minutes with Lisk, Goos and Furriela giving chase at 4:30 down. Quite unexpectedly, Ironman World Championship 3rd place finisher Joyce was 15 minutes off the pace. Observers on the course stated that Joyce got lost and finished the bike leg in 2:30:09.

By 39k, Frederiksen appeared to be in the form that brought her to $100,000 wins at Hy-Vee and Challenge Bahrain in 2014 and a 3rd place early this year at Challenge Dubai. Frederiksen was inexorably pulling away to a 4:36 lead on Chura, followed by Goos (+6:45), Lisk (+8:18), Monticeli (+10:09), Furriela (+10:11), Mahn (+11:54) Giannini (+11:54) and Ruth Brennan Morey of the U.S. (+13:09).

By 55k, Frederiksen led Chura by 5:30 and Goos by 7:30. After that surge, Frederiksen cooled off on the final 35k of the bike leg and arrived at T2 with a 7:27 lead on Chura and 7:46 on Goos.

“The start lists promised competitive racing but I really stuck to my plan and how I wanted to execute a satisfying race, which was basically hard from the gun,” wrote Frederiksen. “I felt great out there. The strong lead off the bike really allowed me to preserve a little on the run for me to hop back into training with relative ease and little damage to the body.”

At 6.5k into the run, Frederiksen led Goos by 9:42 and Chura was 10:37 off the pace. Cruising to the finish with a women’s second-fastest half marathon of 1:24:24, Frederiksen finished in 4:04:16 with a 12:59 margin on Goos (1:28:27 run) and 14 minutes on fast-closing 3rd-place finisher Ruth Brennan Morey of the U.S., who ran a women’s-best 1:22:27 split. Chura’s 1:33:01 run brought her home 4th, 3:04 behind Morey and Kristin Moeller of Germany finished 5th, 1:27 behind Chura.

Joyce regrouped after her off course excursion on the bike, running a 5th-best 1:27:10 to finish 10th.

MEN

Six men exited the water within 10 seconds of one another, led by Brazilians Almir Martins (24:15) and Luiz Francisco Ferreira (24:17). Hard on their heels were Timothy O’Donnell of the U.S. (24:20), Iuri Vinuto (BRA) 24:21), Igor Amorelli (BRA) and Tim Don of the UK (24:25). After a 50 seconds gap came a pack of 18 that included Jeremy Jurkiewicz of France, Frank Silvestrin of Brazil, Bruno Pais of Portugal, Tyler Butterfield of Bermuda, Daniel Fontana of Italy, Santiago Ascenco of Brazil, Richie Cunningham of Australia and Thiago Vinhal of Brazil.

At 9k into the 3-lap 90k bike leg, things were starting to sort out with O’Donnell taking a solo lead, followed by Amorelli (+28 seconds), and Don (+29s).

“When we hit the bike course I noticed I had a little bit of a gap on the other guys from the lead swim group and decided to just get after it,” O’Donnell emailed Slowtwitch. “It was hard to get away with Igor [Amorelli] and then Tyler [Butterfield] and Santiago [Ascenco] chasing hard to close the gap.”

Next was a 7-man pack in tight formation at 90 seconds down, including Ferreira, Ascenco, Jurkiewicz, Fontana, Butterfield, Pais and swim leader Martins.

“TO took the bike out hard and I decided to back off,” Don told Slowtwitch. “When Igor [Amorelli] caught me we had TO in our sights - under a minute - for the first 50km. But then he found another gear and pulled out a bigger lead. He was riding strong - Like Bull - today!!”

O’Donnell said added traffic on the second lap of the bike presented an opportunity. “I think once the course got crowded with the age group field in the 2nd and 3rd laps it was harder for the guys to keep an eye on me and I was able to slip away a bit more.”

At 39k, O’Donnell maintained a 30 seconds lead on Amorelli and Don while Butterfield and Ascenco remained in range, 1:10 down. A second chase pack including Fontana, Jurkiewicz and Brazilians Guilherme Manocchio and Luiz Ferreira were 2:25 down to O’Donnell.

At 55k, O’Donnell stretched his lead to 1:10 over the lead chase back that included Amorelli, Butterfield, Don and Ascenco. From that point, things stabilized as O’Donnell continued to gradually increase his lead on his way to a race-best 1:59:03 bike split which at T2 gave him a 2 minutes 8 seconds lead over Butterfield (1:59:54 bike split) with Don (2:01:15) , Ascenco (1:59:58) and Amorelli (2:01:03) another 10 seconds behind.

O’Donnell did not spend all his energy on his swift solo bike leg, as he held a 1:24 lead on Don and 2:09 on Butterfield at 6.5k of the run. Amorelli was 4th (+2:40), Ascenco 5th (+3:04) and Pais 6th (+5:15) with Fontana gaining at (+6:03) and Brazilians Mario De Elias and Frank Silvestrin locked in a duel for 8th place at 6:18 down.

By 10k, Don whittled O’Donnell’s lead to 40 seconds – and took a 50 meter lead at 15k. Tyler Butterfield remained in 3rd, 3 minutes down.

“Based off of how we ran last year and my fitness going into the race, I honestly thought 2 minutes would have been good for a win or at least a sprint finish!” O’Donnell told Slowtwitch. “Tim [Don] stepped up his run though and I didn't have the leg speed I needed to keep me in front. “

Don’s by far race-best 1:13:20 run brought him to the finish in 3:41:47 with a 53 seconds margin on O’Donnell (1:16:20 run) and 4:01 on 3rd-place finisher Butterfield (1:17:08 run).

“On to the run I knew I had work ahead of me but was conscious of not wanting to go out too hard and pay the price later on,” wrote Don. “I managed to build into a good pace and at about 15km caught TO. I was chuffed to come back to Brasilia and win again after last year. It was a tough day at the office, but fun too!”

Igor Amorelli was first Brazilian and 4th overall, 2:05 behind Butterfield and Ascenco took 2nd Brazilian and 5th overall, 18 seconds behind his countryman.

Ironman 70.3 Brazil / Latin America Championship
Brasilia, Brazil
April 5, 2015
S 1.2 mi. / B 56 mi. / R 13.1 mi.

Results

Women

1. Helle Frederiksen (DEN) 4:04:16
2. Sofie Goos (BEL) 4:17:15
3. Ruth Brennan Morey (USA) 4:18:16
4. Haley Chura (USA) 4:21:20
5. Kristin Moeller (GER) 4:22:47
6. Ricarda Lisk (GER) 4:26:13
7. Ariane Monticeli (BRA) 4:27:46
8. Patricia Mendes (BRA) 4:28:12 *F25-29
9. Valentina Carvallo (CHL) 4:28:14
10. Rachel Joyce (GBR) 4:29:16

Men

1. Tim Don (GBR) 3:41:47
2. Timothy O’Donnell (USA) 3:42:40
3. Tyler Butterfield (BER) 3:45:48
4. Igor Amorelli (BRA) 3:47:53
5. Santiago Ascenco (BRA) 3:48:11
6. Mario De Elias (ARG) 3:49:32
7. Fabio Carvalho (BRA) 3:49:48
8. Flavio Queiroga (BRA) 3:50:13
9. Bruno Pais (POR) 3:50:23
10. Jeremy Jurkiewicz (FRA) 3:50:50