Ronnie Schildknecht won his 9th Ironman Switzerland title and Daniela Ryf dominated the women’s race with a swift 8:51:50 performance one week after her Challenge Roth victory.
Men
Schildknecht started with a usual deficit after the swim – 5:46 – and countered with a 2nd-best 4:31:01 bike leg that left him in 4th place, 4:44 behind T2 leader Roman Deisenhofer of Germany. Like clockwork, Schildknecht took over the lead halfway through the marathon on 2:41 pace. After a race-best 2:47:07 run, Schildknecht finished in 8:17:04 with a 7:09 margin of victory over Timo Bracht of Germany (2:54:34 run) and 12:08 over Jan Van Berkel of Switzerland (2:59:23 run).
After his race-best 4:26:15 bike split, Deisenhofer faded to a 3:07:08 run to finish 4th, 3:46 behind Van Berkel. After falling far behind after a 4:44:12 bike split, David Plese of Slovenia made up a lot of ground with a 3rd-best 2:52:46 run to take 5th, 3:52 behind Deisenhofer.
Women
The big question about the women's race: Would Daniela Ryf escape injury or exhaustion having to validate her Kona entry just one week after her near-record 8:22:04 performance one week ago at Challenge Roth? Such a back-to-back ordeal was made necessary after the defending Ironman World Champion withdrew from Ironman Frankfurt July 3 with hypothermia and decided to take a run at Chrissie Wellington’s Iron-distance record at Roth last weekend (she fell 4 minutes short). Because Challenge races do not count for Kona validation, Ryf had to finish an official Ironman race before Kona and decided to get the requirement out of the way as soon as possible.
After the swim, Ryf was 2 seconds behind Swiss countrywoman Celine Schärer, then rocketed away to a 2:40 lead by 30km. By the finish of her by-far women’s-best 4:46:30 split on the demanding 2-lap bike course with more than 3,000 feet of climbing, Ryf had a big lead on a quartet of fellow Swiss - 21:10 on Emma Bilham, 26:10 on Regula Rohrbach, 26:11 on Schärer and 19:37 on the legendary Natascha Badmann who posted a women's 2nd-best 5:02:18 bike split.
If anyone was expecting Ryf to walk it in since .all she had to do .to make the Kona field was finish, they would have to wait a while. Ryf ran 44:37 for her first 10.5k and 1:30:49 for the first half marathon, then backed off the gas a little, running 1:37 for her final half marathon. Ryf ran a 3:07:31 marathon to finish in 8:51:50 – still the 50th-best women’s Ironman-distance best mark and 29th-best women’s effort at an official Ironman race.
Ironman Switzerland
Zurich, Switzerland
July 24, 2016
S 2.4 mi. / B 112 mi. / R 26.2 mi.
Men
1, Ronnie Schildknecht (SUI) 8:17:04
2, Timo Bracht (GER) 8:24:13
3, Jan Van Berkel (SUI) 8:29:12
4. Roman Deisenhofer (GER) 8:32:58
5, David Plese (SLO) 8:36:50
6. Mauro Baertsch (SUI) 8:36:55
7. Christian Brader (GER) 8:49:07
8. Patrick Jaberg (SUI) 8:49:39
9. Mike Schifferle (SUI) 8:50:28
10. Steve Bovay (SUI) 9:04:11 * M30-34
Women
1. Daniela Ryf (SUI) 8:51:50
2. Emma Bilham (SUI) 9:21:48
3. Michaela Herlbauer (AUT) 9:28:12
4. Celine Schärer (SUI) 9:35:26
5. Ariane Monticeli (BRA) 9:40:07
6. Karen Thibodeau (CAN) 9:40:38
7. Carina Hengartner (SUI) 9:46:19
8. Alyssa Godesky (USA) 9:47:20
9. Natascha Badmann (SUI) 9:47:21
10. Stephanie Kuhnert (GER) 9:50:43 * F25-29
