Crawfords take Taiwan 70.3

Unrelated Crawfords, New Zealanders Gina and Guy, took the women’s and men’s pro titles Sunday at Ironman 70.3 Taiwan.

Women

Gina Crawford of New Zealand led the women's swim in 26:49, which gave her a 1:22 advantage on Kate Bevilaqua and 1:28 on fellow Australian Dimity-Lee Duke. Bevilaqua’s women’s-best 2:03:07 bike split took back 1 minute from Crawford and 3:33 from Duke, which gave Crawford just a 27 seconds lead on Bevilaqua and 4:01 on Duke starting the run.

Crawford’s women’s best 1:34:40 run made the difference, as that brought her to the finish in 4:05:37 with a 1:31 margin of victory over Bevilaqua (1:35:50 run) and 8:36 over Duke (1:39:10 run).

Men

Harry Wiltshire of Great Britain led the swim with a 23:51 split, which gave him a 9 and 10 seconds advantage on Kiwi Guy Crawford and Christian Kramer of Germany respectively. Paul Ambrose of Australia was 1:01 arrears, Frederik Croneborg of Sweden trailed by 1:06, and Cameron Brown of New Zealand lagged by 1:53.

While Wiltshire fell 7 minutes back with a 1:49:25 bike split, Kramer and Crawford surged to the front with race-best splits of 1:42:31 and 1:42:38. This gave them a 5 minutes gap over Ambrose and Croneborg (1:47 splits) and 9-plus minutes on Brown.

Crawford took the race with a 2nd-best 1:21:24 half marathon split, which brought him to the finish in 3:33:43 with a 1:56 margin on Kramer (1:23:18 run) and 2:58 on 3rd-place finisher Croneborg, who closed with a race-best 1:20:50 run.

Ironman 70.3 Taiwan
Formosa, Taiwan
November 1, 2015
S 1.2 mi. / B 47 mi. / R 13.1 mi.

Results

Men

1. Guy Crawford (MZL) 3:33:42
2. Christian Kramer (GER) 3:35:38
3. Frederik Croneborg (SWE) 3:38:40
4. Cameron Brown (NZL) 3:44:31
5. Paul Ambrose (AUS) 3:46:24

Women

1. Gina Crawford (NZL) 4:05:36
2. Kate Bevilaqua (AUS) 4:07:07
3. Dimity-Lee Duke (AUS) 4:14:12
4. Emi Sakai (JPN) 4:21:35
5. Kathryn Haesner (NZL) 4:23:43