Andreas Böcherer beat local favorites Ronnie Schildknecht and Mathias Hecht at 70.3 Switzerland by a good margin and broke the course record. Defending champion Caroline Steffen jumped into the lead on the bike and also took a reasonably comfortable win.

Andreas Böcherer recently had finished in second place at Ironman South Africa and after a couple solid races in his native Germany he now had infiltrated Switzerland to attempt to steal a title away from the neighbors.

His day started will with the fastest swim in 22:52 and to top that one off Böcherer also recorded the fastest bike split in 2:05:48. That was a minute faster than Ronnie Schildknecht and over 3.5 minutes faster than Mathias Hecht.

Out on run Böcherer recorded a swift 1:15:13 time to take the win at the Powerbar Ironman 70.3 Switzerland in 3:46:56.

"After Buschhuetten four weeks ago I had three really good training weeks and last weekend I was finally able to beat Sebastian Kienle at his home race at the City Triathlon Heilbronn. So I knew I was in good shape," said Böcherer to slowtwitch. "I am really really happy. I always knew I had some talent for the sport, but this year I finally have found the right balance and have been totally injury free for more than a year now."

Caroline Steffen was 4th out of the water but pretty fast stormed into the lead and with her 2:18:55 was back first into T2.

"I didn't really feel well during the swim, but the cycling and running did go much better," said Steffen. "It was the first title of my career I had to defend and was thus nervous as never before."

Steffen though didn't show any real signs of nervousness and took the win in 4:15:10 with her 1:28:01 run.

Runner-up Karin Thürig was happy with her performance too and with her plans to retire at the end of this season, the World Champion cyclist seems to be going out on a good note. Her bike split of 2:17:17 was as expected fastest among the females but her 1:27:12 run was certainly nothing to be ashamed about.

German Sonja Tajsich prevented a Swiss sweep of the podium with her third place finish in a time of 4:24:58.


Powerbar Ironman 70.3 Switzerland
Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland / June 5, 2011
1.9k swim / 90k bike / 21.1k run

Top men

1. Andreas Böcherer (GER) 3:46:56
2. Ronnie Schildknecht (SUI) 3:51:23
3. Mathias Hecht (SUI) 3:54:36
4. Paul Amey (GBR) 3:54:38
5. Cyril Viennot (FRA) 3:57:33
6. Swen Sundberg (GER) 3:59:06
7. Stefan Riesen (SUI) 3:59:54
8. Mario De Elias (ARG) 4:01:07
9. Nicolas Fernandez (FRA) 4:01:51
10. Bruno Clerbout (BEL) 4:04:37

Top women

1. Caroline Steffen (SUI) 4:15:10
2. Karin Thürig (SUI) 4:18:31
3. Sonja Tajsich (GER) 4:24:58
4. Regula Rohrbach (SUI) 4:25:47
5. Erika Csomor (HUN) 4:27:20
6. Sophie De Groote (BEL) 4:28:02
7. Kristin Müller (GER ) 4:28:04
8. Emma-Kate Lidbury (GBR) 4:29:23
9. Simone Benz (SUI) 4:31:12
10. Silvia Felt (GER) 4:33:39