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Kansas 70.3 Photo Gallery

After last year's rains flooded parts of the run course, the 2009 Ironman Kansas 70.3 stayed mostly dry and fast thanks to cloudy mild temperatures and light winds.

After a sixth place thrashing at the Olympic distance Columbia Triathlon a few weeks prior, Chrissie Wellington was relieved to pull out a dominating win in 4:14:52. But she took even greater pleasure in her disaster-free NASCAR-style 4-minute pit stop to replace a flat, demonstrating that her endless practice mastering the deployment of the CO2 canister to inflate the tube had not been in vain.

On the men's side, Luke Bell, Tim O'Donnell,Paul Matthews and Stephen Hackett broke away on the bike. O'Donnell made a brave move to lead the run until Luke Bell ran him down with a mile and a half to go and finished in a swift 3:49:35.

All in all, a good hit out for all concerned.

Kelly Benefit wind tunnel days

Just a few years ago some UCI Continental Team were lucky if they received more than just aero bars for their road bikes to compete in TT events. But more and more teams and their sponsors understand now that racing TT events is very important and that they need to do a better job in that area.

So for the last two days, the Kelly Benefit Strategies Team sent 8 athletes to North Carolina where they were adjusted on their new Orbea Ordu bikes. Sponsor representatives Max Ralph from FSA, Nate Field from Mavic and Chris Smith from Lazer where also on hand to answer questions about their products and see them in action.

Team riders fitted

- Ryan Anderson
- Andrew Bajadali
- Zach Bell
- Guy East
- Reid Mumford
- Neil Shirley
- David Veilleux
- Scott Zwizanski

Manager on site

Jonas Carney

All images © Herbert Krabel

Kona 09 Friday

Friday is pretty much all about the bike check-in and getting rested. Many Pros who have been seemingly in hiding showed their faces for the first time in public, plus it is always interesting to see how the age groupers roll up.

Related other galleries

Kona 2009 images from Thursday
Kona 09 underpants run
Kona 2009 images from Wednesday
Images from the Parade of Nations
Kona 2009 images from Tuesday
Kona 2009 images from Monday

Kona 09 Friday 2

Even more images from the 2009 Ford Ironman Hawaii World Championships bike check-in.

Related other galleries

Kona 2009 images from Friday
Kona 2009 images from Thursday
Kona 09 underpants run
Kona 2009 images from Wednesday
Images from the Parade of Nations
Kona 2009 images from Tuesday
Kona 2009 images from Monday

Kona 09 Monday

While quite a few triathletes are already in Kona, the next two days are the days when most of them arrive.

Kona 09 Race Day - 1

Craig Alexander said that his second Ironman World Championship title was more rewarding than his first thanks to the dig deep effort he had to make to out-duel Andreas Raelert and overcome the big lead Chris Lieto earned with a 4:25 bike. Showing that nothing is a sure thing on the Queen K, Crowie found that Chris Lieto offered even more resistance than he showed in their killer duel at Boise Ironman 70.3 earlier in the year.

Photo Gallery by Timothy Carlson

Kona 09 Race Day - Men's Bike

In 2004 and 2006 Normann Stadler proved you can win it on the bike. But as Stadler proved, you must also reserve enough energy to defend that lead on the run. This year Chris Lieto's 4:25:10 bike appeared to be the possible equal of Stadler's 2006 course record and probably a better effort than Torbjorn Sindballe's swift 2005 trip up and down the Queen K. That's because October 10 was sneaky hot with an aggravating dose of not so brisk winds that kept shifting in the riders' faces all day long. The resultant wear and tear led to DNFs for an all-star cast -- Tim DeBoom, Patrick Vernay, Thomas Hellriegel, Michael Goehner, Marino Vanhoenacker, Normann Stadler, and a wicked noble but achingly slow 5:38:43 marathon after a third-best 4:31:36 bike for 6-foot 5-inch Ain Alar-Juhanson.

So Lieto earned his best-ever second place finish not only with a great ride, but also for reserving enough energy to hold off Craig Alexander's run until the 22nd mile of the marathon.

Photo Gallery by Timothy Carlson

Kona 09 Race Day Part 1 - Swim

Tension, impatience, relief and sheer exuberance fill the air when the waiting is done and it's time to slip in to the waters of Kailua Bay and await the cannon's blast. For triathletes, the dawn of Ironman Hawaii is birthday, Christmas Day, graduation day, wedding day all wrapped into one big aerobic test of physical readiness and personal character. Awaiting the start, some cope by meditation, others make a few jokes, others retreat into a wall of silent focus before they go out into the blue sea and bright yellow sun to confront the inevitable dark places within themselves that scream "Quit!"

Photo Gallery by Timothy Carlson

Kona 09 Thursday

Ironman Hawaii is creeping closer and many people started this day with the underpants run. But there is more to this day.

Related other galleries

Kona 09 underpants run
Kona 2009 images from Wednesday
Images from the Parade of Nations
Kona 2009 images from Tuesday
Kona 2009 images from Monday

Kona 09 Tuesday

The Team Commerzbank breakfast at Lava Java jump started Tuesday and the Slowtwitch / Retul bike lounge at the Sheraton filled out the day until the Parade of Nations. As the Parade came to a close the Expo and Bike Demo area were jam packed with athletes, friends and families.

Kona 09 Underwear Run

Paul Huddle and Roch Frey founded the Underwear Run with the purpose of shaming Euros into wearing something les revealing and more respectful than Speedos during Ironman week in Kona. Obviously, this has gotten out of hand.

Captions are superfluous.

Photo Gallery by Timothy Carlson

Related other galleries

Kona 2009 images from Wednesday
Images from the Parade of Nations
Kona 2009 images from Tuesday
Kona 2009 images from Monday

Kona 09 Wednesday

A very busy pier started Wednesday with a bang and the Slowtwitch gathering at the blueseventy home closed it out in style.

Related other galleries
Images from the Parade of Nations
Kona 2009 images from Tuesday
Kona 2009 images from Monday

Kona 09 – Men’s Finish

Yes, it’s an easy shot, the Ironman World Championship finish line at Kona. The later afternoon sun shines on their faces. The men give their best finishing gestures and smiles and leaps in ecstatic celebration and hands held high in triumph or understated workmanlike quiet pride. The pros rarely show the extremes of emotion, but underneath the mask there are subtle clues about their character and how the day had gone. Look closely, read them. There are lessons about the human spirit to be learned.

Photo Gallery by Timothy Carlson

Kona 09 – The Run

The Ironman Hawaii run starts in a windless steam bath during a 9-mile out and back along Alii Drive. This provides a handy opportunity for contenders to see how far they are ahead or behind when they reach the turnaround near the cozy little seaside place of worship called St. Peter’s Catholic Church. With a few places where the run passes open seashore, it’s also a magnet for photographers. Then the course climbs up the half mile hill at Palani before turning left and entering a six-mile stretch on the Queen K Highway which includes the beginning of the signature lava fields – although development has dampened the sense of magnificent isolation that still pervades the bike. Then they hit the 4-mile decent and climb out of the Natural Energy Lab of Hawaii which includes some of the hottest temperatures at a pivotal point in the race. It is also a second significant chance for runners to get a fix on the margins of lead or deficit – just hit your watch when you pass your rival and multiply it by two when you hit the turnaround.

The final stretch is a little over 10k to go. Just under five miles along the Queen K. At Mile 24, everybody knows that is the start of Mark and Dave Hill – the spot where Mark Allen made his move on Dave Scott in their epic 1989 Iron War. At the top of Palani, it’s about 1.2 miles to go. Down the steep declivity of Palani, left half a mile along Kuakini, right on Hualalai where Karen Smyers passed a reeling Paula Newby-Fraser in 1995, right on Alii at Uncle Billy’s (where Julie Moss and Paula stopped dung their meltdowns. Then turn right for a quarter mile or so along magical Alii Drive.

Photo gallery by Timothy Carlson

Kona 09 – Women's Finish Line

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. The easiest photograph in sports. But somehow it never grows old, it’s never a cliché. It’s the Hawaii Ironman finish line.

Photo Gallery by Timothy Carlson

Kona 09 – Women’s bike

There were a lot of good women cyclists in Kona trying to challenge Chrissie Wellington’s domination. But at the end of the day, the Wellington Express left the station by Mile 20 on the Queen K. Wellington built a Newby-Fraser-esque 15-minute lead by T2 after a 5th-best-ever 4:52:07 bike. What the day required was beating a sneakily irritating, albeit not-quite-mumuku strength wind that rotated to be always in the face, and a salt-sucking heat and humidity. It was a measure of Wellington’s obvious greatness that the bike splits of certifiable Hall of Famers like 6-time champion Natascha Badmann (5:19:48) and 2006 champion Michellie Jones (5:23:11) and 2008 runner-up Yvonne Van Vlerken (5:16:41) and double-digit Ironman winners Belinda Granger (5:18:05) and Bella Bayliss (5:17:23) not only were 20 or more minutes in Wellington’s wake, the effort to produce those times left every of them in the DNF column.

Still, while Wellington flew through her third Ironman bike swiftly and without a flat tire incident, it was still behind Newby-Fraser 4:48:30 and Erin Baker’s 4:50:16 bike splits in 1993, Olympic gold medalist cyclist Karin Thurig’s 4:50 splits in 2003 and 2005, and Natascha Badmann’s 4:52:00 in 2005. “Records,” said Wellington, putting her deeds to back up her mouth, “are made to be broken.”

Photo Gallery by Timothy Carlson

Kona 2008 race day images

Kona Parade Day

Los Angeles Triathlon 2009

The Kaiser Permanente City of Los Angeles Triathlon is now 10 years old and somehow manages to shut down LA city streets from wacky Venice Beach to the looming skyscrapers in downtown LA for the enjoyment of 2,500 age groupers and about 50 of the world's elite. In the past, non-drafting legends like Craig Walton, Chris McCormack, Greg Bennett, Emma Snowsill and Becky Lavelle have won it. This Sunday, ITU stars Javier Gomez of Spain and Lisa Norden of Sweden prevailed on a day which began in Victory at Sea surf conditions and ended in the sun dappled Staples Center, home to legends of other sports. Photo Gallery by Timothy Carlson

Meditation on Vegas

More Ultraman 08 impressions

New York City Photo Gallery

The only trouble with the happy task of diving into the touristic adventures of New York City is you will never get to the bottom of the 8 million stories awaiting in The Naked City aka the Big Apple. Even armed with the best of the Zagat’s, travel guides and a set of essays by Pico Iyer, Jan Morris and Tom Wolfe, and an encyclopedia of cinema mindset, New York is the infinite, bottomless ocean.

Virtually every nook and cranny of the city has a film or literary reference as well as a rich history of its own, so almost every famed landmark is accompanied by ghosts and a patina of the characters who have made history in its presence.

And so even its most famed attractions somehow escape the deathly grip of cliché. When you come into contact with the elegant lines of its buildings and monuments, given an aura by the way that light hits it, each of these magic places has an authentic presence that cannot be duplicated even by the masters of imitation in America’s other Capital of Dreams - Las Vegas.

NYC Triathlon Photo Gallery

The New York City Triathlon welcomed 3,000 age groupers and a select field of pros to the Big Apple for its 9th annual Hudson River swim, West Side Highway bike, and Central Park run. Andrew Yoder made a splash on the bike, but Greg Bennett restored the natural order by the end of the run, taking his fourth straight Big Apple title. Rebeccah Wassner proved that home field is an advantage, riding her race bike from her Manhattan apartment to the start line, and taking her first Nautica New York Triathlon win after six tries. Photographs by Timothy Carlson

Ode to Joy

Second in a series of finish line photographs by Timothy Carlson. The thrill of victory comes in many flavors and goes not only to the triathlete who crosses the line first.

It can be an answered prayer, a cessation of torture, an embrace or an unambiguous exultation for which only Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Hallelujah chorus can do justice. With all due respect to Leo Tolstoy, his opening lines of Anna Karenina – “Every happy family is the same, but unhappy families are all different” – do not cover the range of joyful expression at triathlon’s finish lines. For Welchy and his heir to triumphant Aussie air, Robbo, their exuberant leaps offer a robust, balletic denial of Pheidippedes’ fate. For Sian Welch, Barb Lindquist and the kneeling Brazilian, the first impulse was to give thanks. For the blond Aussie tiger, the finish banner was a tasty eland on the veldt. For Peter Reid and Lori Bowden, that winning moment was pure passion. For Belinda Granger, a well done day on the Queen K merited hoisting a merry inflatable Roo over head at the finish. For the tall, strong, swift and enduring dad at Ironman Wisconsin, the finish line faint and tumble offered a story his three children can tell on him for the next 50 years. Modern mud men and mud women can share primitive joy, an elite German athlete can feel the joy of flight, and an otherwise deskbound scribbler can feel like Muhammad Ali at the end of the Thrilla in Manila thanks to a little Ironman jaunt on the wild side.

Quelle Challenge Roth Gallery

Roth is known for its history, its speed and for the large, passionate crowds it draws to witness record-breaking drama every year. It is Solarerberg and Bier, Jurgen Zack and Paula Newby-Fraser, Luc Van Lierde and Thomas Hellriegel, Lothar Leder and Chris McCormack, and now Chrissie Wellington and her epochal 8:31.

Quelle Challenge Roth is a lot of things, but it starts with a small town in Bavaria, population about 20,000 located 15 miles south of Nuremberg. Roth's history begins in 1060 with a mention in a document written by bishop Gundekar II regarding the consecration of a church. Roth had a market place in the 12th century, in the mid 14th century it became a city and by the 16th century it had a castle - Ratibor - and a Gothic church that stands today. By 1988, Detlef Kuhnel brought Roth an Ironman, which was taken over by the late Herbert Walchshofer and run today by his son Felix and the Challenge organization as the biggest and most prestigious independent Iron-distance event in the world.

In the past 21 years, this first European Ironman became the stage for some of the most dramatic encounters in the sport of triathlon. It's where Thea Sybesma in 1992 became the first woman to crack the 9-hour barrier, and Paula Newby-Fraser set a women's record of 8:50:53 in 1994 that stood for 14 years. It's where German star Lothar Leder in 1996 became the first man to crack the Ironman 8-hour barrier. It's also the race where in 1997, an epic duel was waged and Belgian star Luc Van Lierde passed Germany'/s Jurgen Zack with 2 kilometers to go in the process of setting a still-standing Iron-distance record of 7:50:27. Zack could console his disappointment with the fact that his second place finish remains the second-fastest men's Iron-distance time ever. To wrap up that incredible year, Lothar Leder took third and Thomas Hellriegel fourth and also broke 8 hours. In 2003, Lothar Leder beat Chris McCormack by three seconds after an Iron-distance race long war that had the crowd at the finish going mad. In 2008, the women took their turn in a mass assault on the old barrier, with four breaking the 9-hour mark and the Netherland's Yvonne Van Vlerken broke Newby-Fraser's old mark and setting a new women's world best of 8:45:48.

And just this year defending two time Ironman World Champion Chrissie Wellington took a quantum leap for women when she smashed the old mark like Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier with an incredible 8:31:59 finish. The race now serves 4,200-plus triathletes from 51 countries and is embraced by Roth and the surrounding towns so that there is more than one volunteer for every racer.

While it has the numbers and the history, anyone who goes to Roth sees this race is about passion. Standing along with 10,000 other screaming fans on the hill called Solarerberg, cheering each rider as they power up the incline, is race director Felix Walchshofer. All along the route , in 20 or so villages, are fans with brauts and bier, holding their children all cheering these amazing endurance athletes.


Are equipment rules important? What organization's rules do you seek to comply with before you purchase bikes, wetsuits, etc.? UCI 1% USA Cycling 2% UCI/USAC 0% WTC 2% USAT 24% WTC/USAT 17% ITU 3% All 3% None 47% 215 Votes