9:40 That will close it up for us. We shall assume that the women came across in substantially the order they were in at mile-25. Of course with the women you never know for sure, as Alii Drive is historically a tough stretch for them. Be that as it may, we'll leave it up to Ironmanlive to post the precise times and places for everyone outside of the twenty we've listed. Thanks for reading, and we'll be reporting from beautiful downtown Valyermo by Monday morning, or even tomorrow if we get the urge (the fun being over, we scoot out on tonight's red eye).
9:33 At mile-25, after Kate Allen, came Karin Thurig, Sybille Matter, Joanna Lawn.
9:28 It was Lori Bowden, Heather Fuhr, Fernanda Keller, Lisa Bentley and Kate Allen in that order at mile-25.
9:20 The differential between men's and women's winners was 37:58. This was the second smallest in history, behind Paula's 9:01:01 in 1988, which was 30:01 behind Scott Molina's winning time. This begs the question, were the men slower than normal this year, or were the women faster? The second place woman, Nina Kraft, was 43:39 behind DeBoom, and in '88 2nd-place Erin Baker was 41:14 behind her future husband Molina. Who knows what this all demonstrates? Probably nothing. But two years ago Natascha was 1:06:16 behind the 2000 men's winner Peter Reid. This year the was halved between her and Peter, and almost halved between her and the race's winner.
9:15 Germany's Nina Kraft is the second woman home in 9:13:35. Any other year she might've won it.
9:13 More men's finishers:
12. Peter Kropko 8:51:05
13. Tim Luchinske 8:51:47
14. Xavier Le Floch 8:54:27
15. Oscar Galindez 8:54+
16. Luke Bell 8:55:09
17. Bruno Von Flue 8:56:26
18. Christoph Mauch 8:57:07
9:09 Natascha Badmann wins, in 9:07:54, which is a darn good time when you consider the differential between the winning men's and women's times.
9:00 Natascha is off the Queen-K and is now pointing herself downhill and toward the finish. Nina Kraft is right at 6 minutes behind. It's apparently Big Hair in third (aka Ms. Bowden) but she's got a bit of running to do before she enters downtown. PNF is running with main squeeze Huddle, who's doing the race for the first time in a few years.
8:54 Natascha is about to arrive at mile-25. We know this because there is a helicopter coming our way, and anxious male competitors are suddenly looking behind them and sprinting, which at this stage of the game amounts to their best effort at a faster Kona Shuffle.
8:50 Olaf may've sprinted too soon. Here are the top ten men, and the first AGer, who was the next to finish in 11th.
1. Tim DeBoom 8:29:56
2. Peter Reid 8:33:05
3. Cameron Brown 8:35:33
4. Thomas Hellriegel 8:36:59
5. Alexander Taubert 8:38:58
6. Francois Chabaut 8:40:39
7. Marcus Forster 8:44:28
8. Mika Luoto 8:45:45
9. Cam Widoff 8:45:53
10. Olaf Sabatschus 8:46:18
11. Thomas Soderdahl 8:48:28
8:38 Marcus Forster was the next to come by with just a bit to go, and :30 later Cam Widoff was trailed by Olaf Sabatschus and Mika Luoto. Once on the Palani Road descent, with less than mile to go, Sabatschus put the hammer down on them both and sped away. Mika Luoto might also go by Widoff. Then came Tom Soderdahl, the first amateur! By our reckoning this might place him in the top 10!
8:31 Tim DeBoom must've wondered whether he really was going to repeat. But at 8:30 and change that's exactly what happened, with Peter Reid a no-doubt relieved second place. We'll report on the rest of the finishers as we get word from the course.
8:23 Hellriegel was running well enough that if you didn't know that he was the one who'd gotten passed by third place, you'd wonder whether Cam Brown's place was in jeopardy. About 2:30 down on Hellriegel was Alex Taubert. He ran into fifth from the third pack of riders. Next at mile-25 was Chabaud, a minute back of Taubert.
8:16 Mile-25, and it seems like unless DeBoom does an el foldo (which as we all know is highly possible in the last mile of this race) he's going to hold off Peter Reid. Cam Brown is safely in third, and Hellriegel remains in fourth. Meanwhile, at mile-19 Nina Kraft is still right about 5 minutes behind the little Swiss gal.
8:12 Cam Brown has gone past Hellriegel for third. The sturdy German did his best, but has been forced to yield to the runners, as it is the runners who always take this race--the sole exception being the lady who's now in first. Joanna Zeiger has joined Karen Smyers in the medical van.
8:08 Mile-23, and the gap is unchanged. Reid still has to make up close to 2 minutes to win, but frankly after the past couple of seasons he's got to be thrilled that he's back in the game, and we're thrilled for him. Hellriegel is still hanging around in third. Chabaud, who was running strongly, is back there somewhere, we're trying to get a fix on him.
8:03 Smyers has just pulled out of the race. Andreas Niedrig was also just spotted cleaned up and talking to some German friends. We must assume it didn't go well for him.
7:52 Perhaps we've gotten a bad split at mile-18 for the men. We thought Peter had closed to within a minute of Tim, but at mile-20 we hear he's 1:47 down. Hellriegel is 2:28 down from DeBoom, and next came Cam Brown @4:20. Bryan Rhodes has dropped out.
7:46 Not willing to allow the men's race to be the only one with drama, Nina Kraft has just passed mile-18 only 5:20 behind Natascha Badmann. That compares to 7:20 at mile-9. She needs Natascha to fold a bit, yet Natascha historically regains her stride after her usual mid-race swoon.
7:39 Bad things happen to good people down in the Natural Energy Lab. But so far both DeBoom and Reid are both hanging tough. Reid is :55 behind, which means he's almost halved the distance between Tim and himself in the last 5 miles. Hellriegel is another :35 behind Reid. It's going to be a barn burner, and both the top two men are going to have to dig very, very deep It's about 7 miles to the finish, just enough time for Peter.
7:28 The men have been making it interesting while we've been writing about the women. Tim DeBoom has gotten himself into the familiar position of first place, and Peter Reid, also familiar with that spot, is less than two minutes back and can almost smell the lead motorcycle's exhaust. Peter had a a :15 deficit to Thomas Hellriegel at mile-15, and at mile-18 in the race, which it now is, Peter's in second place.
7:22 Rounding out the top ten in the women's race, Sybille Matter (@25:47), Nicole Deboom is with her, then Beth Zinkand, and then a hard charging pair, Heather Fuhr and Lisa Bentley. They lead Kate Allen and Gina Kehr by a bit.
7:16 We've got a few more photos up. Meanwhile, Lori Bowden has run herself into third place in the women's race. She's got just under 18 minutes to make up if she wants the victory. She's 3 minutes up on Fernanda Keller, who's a minute up on Karen Smyers, who's a minute up on Karin Thurig. Jo Lawn is another two minutes behind. All this at mile-9 of the run.
7:03 Meanwhile, Nina Kraft, the REAL second place woman, is 7:22 behind at mile-9. Not out of the hunt, by any means, as Natascha will have her bad patch out there, as she always does (usually around miles 10 to 16). But Kraft will have to have a very GOOD patch at the same time.
7:02 Lothar Leder is a half an hour behind. Shingo Tani is on his heels, running like a madman. Shingo Tani might weigh all of 125 pounds, but he runs in a fashion that suggests that if he ever caught you he wouldn't run by, but would stop and beat the spit out of you. It would be a fearsome sight to be leading the race and see that fellow in your rear view mirror. Unfortunately, he's the second place woman right now, so he's got some ground to make up before he can smell prize purse.
6:58 Chris McCormack has pulled out of the race. The rains, which can make the race a breeze, can make the race a hell as well. The steam bath that baked the runners over the first nine miles of the "tropical" part of this run have wreaked havoc on the big, talented Aussie, and he's reportedly in search of something to drink with a lot of ice in it.
6:47 Another Chann sighting. He's 16 minutes behind Hellriegel, pretty darn good for your first serious triathlon in a dozen years. This will currently place him second among age-group competitors. He's just in front of fellow Texan Mike Lovato.
6:45 Thomas Soderdahl is just coming through at 13 minutes down. He was the top amateur last year, and in is in that same spot right now. He's running with his training buddy and last year's 15th place finisher Mika Luoto.
6:42 Christoph Mauch is now running @10 minutes back, followed by Olaf Sabatschus. Olaf is another one not spotted in the second pack, and he's a fearsome runner. Marcus Forster and Oscar Galindez are on his heels, and one is led to think that along with Taubert we're now into the best runners of the third bike pack.
6:40 Luke Bell was next at 6:40 back of Hellriegel, hanging tough. Then came Alex Taubert, and we don't believe he was in that second cycling group. Who WAS in that group was Chann McRae, and we ought to know fairly soon whether the Channster has been able to pick up his run since June.
6:36 Macca is a dead man walking, 3:10 back. Guess who's now in front of him, at 2:50 back? Tim Deboom. Peter Reid came by looking good at 4:00 down, and also looking good at 4:45 down was Brown, and Widoff was next at a minute back.
6:32 The thought plickens. Running up Palani Road, just about to exit civilization and enter the abyss of the lava fields, it's Thomas Hellriegel. And who is 17 seconds in his rear view mirror? Not Macca. It's the Frenchman, Francois Chaboud! Here's the funny thing. He wasn't the "runner" at IM France, Stefan Riesen was. Chaboud was lucky to hold Riesen off for his one-minute win. Today, though, it's Chaboud with the running legs. Stormin' Normann is 1:17 down, and Macca trails him.
6:19 McCormack is getting a little lesson on how it is over in Kona. After establishing a lead in the early part of the run, he started to wilt a bit. His clothes were drenched by mile-4. By mile-5 Thomas Hellriegel went by him. By mile-6 the lead was :30 and Thomas was smelling the finish, even though it was still 20 miles away. Meanwhile, Stadler was holding strong in third, just a minute and a half back after 5 miles, and just a few steps behind was Chaboud. After a heroic bike ride, Zack didn't have it. He abandoned a short distance into the run.
5:47 They're out on the run. It's Thomas Hellriegel and Chris McCormack together. Jurgen is held up in transition for a 3-minute penalty, and Normann Stadler is about 2 minutes back. Chaboud is close as well, but we're not sure precisely where he is in relation to the leaders. This ought to mean that Zack, Chaboud and Stadler should be in proximity with each other as they leave on the run.
5:40 About that course record. There were some interesting quotes at the press conference yesterday. Ian Sweet asked about going for course records, and Hellriegel replied that, "in '96 the conditions were really good, and I knew Jurgen had the course record. In the last two years, though, you'd be happy to finish the race in 8:30 or 8:40." Then it was time for Jurgen Zack to speak and he said, "I've got the [bike] record in Germany and Thomas has it here," at which point he looked over at Thomas and asked, "Wanna trade?"
5:24 Maybe my math is wrong, but they're just about ready to finish and it seems to me we're already past the record of 4:24 and change. That being the case, it's just the fastest bike split of the day they're haggling over. Well, that and the overall placings.
5:15 Oh by the way, there IS an age-group race going on, and if we can find her, we'll tell you about how Sherry Coons is doing. She almost died (literally) at this race in '95, and now she's back chasing Sue Osborne's 35-39 record of 10:12. Our editor has written about Sherry.
5:07 Chann has been sighted! He's made it up to the chase pack! He's now with Tim Deboom, the Cams, et al. They're 7:30 back of the leading five, who are the two German engines, Macca, and Normann (we don't know if he's gotten back on) and the Frenchman Chaboud. The front men have about 6 miles to go.
4:57 Natascha's doing that smiling thing, one of our spotters reports. And waving to the cameras. There are quite a few women who'd like to wipe that smile off her face. Unfortunately for them they're 10 or 15 minutes behind her right now.
4:52 Normann has been promptly spit back out, and trails by 50 meters or so. I'll tell you exactly what that is about. If Stormin' Normann swam a few seconds slower than the other two Germans, he'll get the new bike record of they all come in together. There are two other Germans who dearly want that record, and don't think there aren't fat bonuses that go with it.
4:47 There's another one chasing hard. Francois Chaboud is now only 1:20 down on the lead four. Then @6 minutes: Reid, Tim Deboom, Peter Sandvang, the Cams, Christoph Mauch, and Luke Bell.
4:42 I remember the time (mid '90s) when Hungary's Peter Kropko, one of the all-time great runners in Ironman racing--with a 2:36 split to his credit (Roth)--scratched his way to the front group after a 90-mile chase. He promptly fainted 6 miles into the run. How will Normann's chase affect him later in the race?
4:40 @95 miles, Normann has made it. Report is, he's not sending a Xmas card to any of the other leading three this year. The four of them are alone by a ways, and we've got a clock on the differential.
4:35 A report from the lead press vehicle: No marshalls in sight around the chase pack AT ALL until somewhere after Waikoloa on the way out on the bike. For most of that time (sez our source) Spence was pulling the group forward. (We're not commentating, just reporting.)
4:30 Third place in the women's race is Karen Smyers. She's 9:23 back. "A pasting," is the way our editor characterizes it. Then Fernanda @10:45, then within a minutte it's Bowden, Belinda Granger, Jill Savege (you can't do it off short course training), then Zeiger, then @13:00 it was PNF and Zinkand, then Kehr @13:50. A minute later it was Karen Thurig, my pre-race favorite, with Jo Lawn. Ten seconds later it was Katja Schumacher, with a penalty attached. She was my co-favorite. Boy can I pick 'em.
4:24 @87 miles into the bike it's still Zack, Hellriegel and Macca. With Stadler :05 back. Boy will he give them an earful when he finally catches them. The chase back is minutes back--like 5 or 6.
4:19 Natascha Badmann hits Kawaihae in first, finally dispatching Nina Kraft. The latter is just over 2 minutes back of the Swiss champion. A further two minutes back is... no one. Natascha is making the race her own--again. Unless Thurig shows up having halved the distance since exiting the water in 1:15.
4:07 Yeah, Spencer's out, two drafting penalties. He's pissed, and expressing it to those within earshot. A bit further behind, @11 minutes or so off the lead, is Lothar Leder. This pace is hurting those who aren't at the very top of their cycling ability.
4:05 At 2:21 back of Hellriegel is Francois Chaboud, IM France champ. He can ride well, he's a fairly good, but not great, runner. Peter Reid and Tim DeBoom are the next at 4:45. Also with them are Tim Deboom, Cam Brown, Cam Widoff, Christoph Mauch, Peter Sandvang, and Luke Bell. Some minutes back is Spencer Smith, who appears to be pulling off the road, helmet unbuckled. We're trying to see if he's got an "X" on him. That would mean DQ. Stay tuned.
3:58 They're back to Kawaihae, and it's still Zack, Hellriegel and McCormack. This time, though, Stadler is :15 down. He won't have kind things to say about his training buddy Jurgen when he catches him.
3:51 It's still the same three in front, with Normann Stadler :30 back and clawing his way forward. The chase pack is losing time. It's been a two minutes since Normann came by and there's no site of them. This is midway from Hawi back to that "K" town that I can't spell.
3:45 On the way back from Hawi, it's still Hellriegel, Zack and Macca who continue to hammer, but another German is steadily stormin' his way up--Normann of course. Nothing's changed in quite awhile. Speaking of Germans, Katja Schumacher, who we predict will have a podium finish, is still a ways in arears, with upward of 8 minutes to make up.
3:22 We have an unconfirmed report that Marc Herremans is out of the race. This is the Belgian star who came 6th place last year, was involved in an injury while riding on Lanzarote which left him paralyzed. We was competing as a challenged athlete this year.
3:16 Hellriegel hits the turnaround at Hawi.
3:15 Weather update. On the road to Hawi it's a soft blue day. No more rain. Gentle breeze. A "nice comfortable day in the sun," as one reporter put it. A record kind of day.
3:08 Nina Kraft still leads ten miles from Hawi, and further ahead, close the the Hawi turnaround, the German train continues to lay waste to the rest of the field. As it was in days of old, Hell-drive and the Chancellor aren't even thinking of the run. They're in a bike race. The only thing wrong with this picture is that Wolfy used to be there too. It's thrilling to see the Germans again at it. And as it was in the days of old, they're in this 2-man battle knowing full well that they're towing a runner to the overall win. Except this time it's Macca instead of Mark Allen. One very imprecise reporter said that the three have a "humungous" lead on the chase pack. That could, of course, be 2-minutes. Or it could be 6-minutes. We'll try to find a more reliable estimate of the actual gap.
2:55 Nina Kraft IS in the lead, with Badmann, Savege and Zeiger trailing. Favorites PNF, Fernanda Keller and Lori Bowden trail in that order by 7 to 8 minutes. Karen Thurig is all of 17 minutes back of Kraft at Kawaihai.
2:49 We've had a McRae sighting. Steve Larsen reports that he's about 4 minutes in arrears of the leaders at Kawaihae. We'll have a few photos up here and there throughout the day, which you'll find here.
2:40 Okay, I've heard that Nina Kraft might be in the lead, ahead of Natascha. Conflicting reports. Now they're past Kawaihae, which means they're in the Bermuda Triangle of cellular reception. We'll see if we can get this clarified. Also, we hear Jurgen has a penalty. How does a guy get all these course records if he's hiding behind other guys who're obviously going slower than he is? A cosmic riddle only the officials can solve for me.
2:35 Natascha arrived at Kawaehai first, Joanna Zeiger is about :15 or :20 back. Jill Savege is next at another :20 back.
2:30 Meanwhile, Lothar is dangled between the chase pack (:30 behind the leading three) and the second pack (2:30). Lonely place to be. Glah and Bernhard aren't close. Perhaps 7 or 8 minutes back. Still waiting for the first woman to arrive at Kaiwaehai, and as I don't have time to look up the spelling just now I'm sure I'll butcher the name of that Hawaiian village a half-dozen times today. I'll see how many different spellings I can come up with.
2:25 We're at Kawaihae. Hellriegel has decided it's time for him, and he's now taken over from Zack. It's going to be a dogfight all day long if these two both have legs, because they both must sense that with the winds and temperature a record is up for grabs. Neither will want the other to have it, and both would almost rather have the bike course record than the overall win. Zack and Macca are loosely working together, limiting their losses to Hell-drive, which at this point are minimal. Sibberson is dangled, and Reid has fallen back to the chase pack, which is about :25 or :30 back.
2:05 We're thirty miles into the ride, and now I know how it is we missed The Chancellor (that's what they call him in Germany). It's the Zack of old. He's shredding the field. Macca trails him, and is riding inside himself. Sibberson has now fallen to third, and he'll have to get used to the feeling of getting passed. Hellriegel has also made his way forward and is clearly on his way to join his arch-rival Zack. Peter Reid has found himself in a familiar and comfortable spot, which is riding with the race's hammers, all of whom he can outrun if he's gotten himself back to his form of old. Now, more than :30 back, and perhaps trending rearward versus the leaders, is Mauch, Stadler, Tim and Tony, and the Cams. There is a nice little tailwind. Records could fall today.
1:55 It seems that Macca is trying to make a dash for it, but a certain two-time champion of this race is having none of it. Twenty-five miles into the bike ride Peter Reid has ridden his pack--or at least those who could hang--past everyone except the front-runner Sibberson and a streaking Chris McCormack. The Aussie rookie is making things tough for everyone except the Canadian, and Spencer Smith, third in line, is straining to ride inside himself. The cagey Deboom (Tim) bides his time some meters back, careful to ride clean, and following him in order is Rhodes, Widoff, Mauch, Cam Brown, and then after a short interval Sandvang and Stadler. Tony DeBoom and Luke Bell trail that pair, and then comes Lothar, who's by himself. Where is Zack? Our spotters must have missed him.
1:45 Twelve miles into the bike ride Sibberson still leads by a couple of minutes over the leaders pack, which still consists of the same group: Macca, Spencer, Tim DeBoom, the Cams, and Mauch. We think Rhodes and Soderdahl are still there, but we're seeking confirmation of that. Yes, Kehr and Zeiger are both up there close to Savege, and the German star Nina Kraft is in there as well. Trailing them at various intervals are Belinda Halloran, Nicole DeBoom, Sibylle Matter, Karen Smyers, and then Natascha, in what must have been a terrific swim for her. PNF is reportedly just behind the flying Swiss, which must be the earliest the Queen of Kona has ever been passed by her European rival.
1:25 We don't have a ton yet on the women's race, but apparently Joanna Zeiger has joined Jill Savege as the women's leaders. Did this mean we previously misreported Zeiger as Kehr, or that Zeiger and Kehr are both up there? We'll try to find out.
1:10 The first pack of male pros to make it up to the to of Kuakini Highway (about 3 miles into the ride) consisted of Tim DeBoom, Spencer Smith, Macca, Cam Brown, Cam Widoff, Brian Rhodes, Christophe Mauch, and last year's top age-group finisher Tom Soderdahl. The second group, about 30 seconds back, consisted of Sandvang, Tony Deboom, Chris Lieto, Lothar Leder, IM France winner Francois Chaboud, Peter Reid, Ausie Luke Bell, and very interestingly Zack and Stadler. The third group, some short distance back, included among others Mika Luoto and James Bonney.
1:05 Oops. We've fallen prey to the old "4" looks like a "9" ploy. Jan Sibberson, #1393, was the first out of the water, not #1343, who we originally thought we spotted--those danged age-groupers.
:55 The lead men's group exiting the swim was large, which included those mentioned below as well as Tony DeBoom and Chris Lieto. I've heard that maybe Cam Widoff and Cameron Brown were in there as well, and we'll try to get further confirmation of exactly who that group contains.
:45 As the swim nears its completion a 40-year-old German age-grouper named Wolfgang Schmatz appears ready to exit the water in the lead. The men's lead pack which trails Schmatz includes McCormack, Tim Deboom, Brian Rhodes and Spencer Smith. Also hanging onto that group is Canadian woman Jill Savege, who's having a career season (mainly as a short courser) and Gina Kehr.
:20 A scenario might play out which occured to me last night. This is the first year since the age of Wolfgang Dittrich that we've had a fearless biker among the fastest swimmers. In the post-Wolfy era the hammers have all been 53- to 55-minute swimmers, and have all been Germans. The 49- to 51-minute crowd knew they were coming and practically sat up and waited for them. Not so with McCormack in the field. He can swim 49 minutes and he'll not wait for anyone. It might be interesting to see if that motivates and energizes Spencer Smith, the Deboom brothers and James Bonney, who among others likely to come out with Macca, and who can probably ride with him.
7:05 AM And they're off! The swim will be held under slightly altered rules this year, with the female pros being allowed to start apart from the rest of the field, merging with the other swimmers some hundreds of meters down the course. Where this separate start is I'm not sure of. I've heard it was on the other side of the pier, i.e., on the side on which they finish. The idea is to allow the women pros to start without getting the spit beat out of them by overanxious males. I don't know how many of the women took advantage of this, and I'm going to guess very few. What probably ought to have been done is to have ALL the women start separately, alongside the men, in a separate lane, a la the New York Marathon. Perhaps next year. This gesture of an optional separate start was a good first effort by WTC, but I doubt many women took advantage of it, for fear of losing the draft that other women pros will get. It's not a small problem, this mass start. At least two top pro women stopped doing Hawaii because of it: Erin Baker and Sue Latshaw.
6:58 AMOur editor Amy White has penned a Good Morning segment for your reading pleasure, describing the last twelve or fourteen hours of our life here on Kona.
6:45 AMThe rain has stopped. But as one of our spotters put it, "It's threatening--the weather's by no means a sure thing." The water is relatively smooth--no whitecaps, it's not bumpy--but there are rolling swells. Stationary swimmers rise and fall on a schedule.
6:30 AM It's been raining all night. It rained on us during the entire Kona Bike Survey last night. We do the Survey as two-man teams, one calling out "steep" or "shallow," or "650" or "700," to a second team member who writes down the result. The "writers" had to hunker down in the port-a-potties so that their ball-point pens would write. I was yelling through the rain to L.A. Tri Club coach Ian Murray, who was sitting on the john (pants up) and recording for posterity.
It's never been like this. Yeah, it rained buckets in '94 I think it was, but not for the race, only for the awards ceremony the night after. This is new. El Nino. Global Warming. Who knows? The proximate cause doesn't matter. What matters is, it's very very wet.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. It occasionally stops. But 15 minutes later it's back raining again. That could portend anything. It could mean a very fast day, if it only rains intermittently. On the other hand if the sun decides to come out and beat down it could mean a steam bath. We'll see.
