Women

Wurtele combined a 4th-fastest 27:32 swim, a women’s by-far best 2:28:26 split on a tough bike course with 3,130 feet of climbing, and a women’s 3rd-best 1:25:45 run to finish in 4:24:00 with a 4:21 margin of victory over Radka Vodickova of the Czech Republic and 8:14 over 3rd-place finisher Haley Chura of the U.S.

Wurtele started her day 3 minutes behind top swimmers Chura (24:26), Carina Brechters of Germany (24:33) and Vodickova (24:35). After her women’s-best 2:28:26 bike split, Wurtele led by 6:21 on Vodickova, 7:14 and 7:15 on Tine Deckers of Belgium and Brechters, and 9:14 on Chura. After her 3rd-best 1:25:45 run, Wurtele gave back 2 minutes to Vodickova’s women’s-best 1:23:46 run and 1 minute to Chura’s 2nd-best 1:24:46 run while gaining 4:45 on Deckers and 8:21 on Brechters.

Wurtele’s victory was her 5th half-Ironman distance win of the year which includes a win at the Ironman 70.3 North American Championship in St. George, Utah and comes after a 2nd place finish at the 2015 Ironman 70.3 Worlds and a win at St. George 70.3 last year.

Men

Collington took a lot longer to run down early leader Giulio Molinari of Italy, who posted a race-best 24:11 swim and race-best 2:15:48 bike split to lead his U.S. rival Collington by 2 minutes, 40 seconds and fellow U.S. competitor Justin Metzler by 6:18 at T2.