Starykowicz, Watts Win Inaugural CLASH Endurance Watkins Glen
Andrew Starykowicz is world famous for his cycling prowess, but in a wire-to-wire victory Saturday the 40-year-old powerhouse issued a race-best 25:23 swim, a dominant 2:01 split for tough hilly 50-mile bike course. Starykowicz then hung on against the fast-closing, race-best run of Jason West to finish in 3:27:03 with a 54 seconds margin over West and 6:34 over third-place finisher Nicholas Chase.
While forgetting that the bike course was 50 miles – not the usual half-Iron 56 miles – Starykowicz commented how tough the bike course was. “I can’t remember when I was over two hours for a 56-mile bike,” Starykowicz said after the race.
Starykowicz took the lead with a 25:23 split for the 1.2 mile in Seneca Lake, then charged through a 2:01 split for the extremely challenging bike leg where he built a 5 minute lead over Jason West and Nicholas Chase. After a three-loop, 10-mile run on the Watkins Glen International Speedway track, West closed the gap to 36 seconds with a few miles to go. But Starky regained his momentum to clinch victory in 3:27:03 with a 54 seconds margin over West and 6:34 over Chase.
In the women’s race, super-swimmer Haley Chura emerged from the water in 31:55, but on the bike leg, Sophie Watts soon took over the lead. After building a big lead with a women’s-fastest 2:18:36 bike split Watts, a former collegiate runner at Stanford, ran a women’s-best 1:01:16 for the 10 mile course to win in 3:54:18.
Chura took the runner-up spot in 4:03:31 and Lesley Smith took third in 4:08:42.
CLASH Endurance Watkins Glen Triathlon
Watkins Glen, New York
July 9, 2022
S 1.2 mi. / B 50 mi. / R 10.5 mi.
Men
1. Andrew Starykowicz USA 3:27:03
2. Jason West USA 3:27:57
3. Nicholas Chase 3:33:37
Women
1. Sophie Watts USA 3:54:18
2. Haley Chura USA 4:03:31
3. Lesley Smith USA 4:08:42
