We Noticed: Beth McKenzie Off to Western States, Lionel Sanders Out for Marbella, Challenge Family Results and Photos, 70.3 Florianopolis Report, and more
One of the scenic views from Challenge Forte Village. Photo: Jose Luis Hourcade
While it seemed as though it was a quiet weekend on the triathlon front, it turns out there was quite a bit going on last weekend, including two pro Challenge Family races, another pro event in Brazil and some interesting run results by triathletes. Here’s what caught our attention. (You’ll find more of Jose Luis Hourcade’s photos from the race in Sardinia below.)
McKenzie Takes Second at Javelina
Beth McKenzie, the former IRONMAN champ (Switzerland in 2015 and Australia in 2016) and co-founder of Wyn Republic, has been focused on trail running the last few years. She won her first go at the new discipline at the Noosa Ultra-Trail race in 2022, and has won a number of ultra-trail events in Australia. (The American makes Australia her home these days with husband Luke, a nine-time IRONMAN champ and their two daughters.) Earlier this year McKenzie competed at UTMB Mont-Blanc and, this weekend, she took second at the prestigious Javelina Jundred 100-miler in Arizona in a time of 14:31:14.
McKenzie competes in Noosa. Photo: Korupt Vision
The Javelina Jundred race is dubbed “the original costumed 100 mile trail run party” by organizers and is held on a 20-mile single-track course on the Pemberton Trail in McDowell Mountain Regional Park. The Javelina Jundred is a “Golden Ticket” race for the prestigious Western States Endurance Run, the world’s oldest 100 mile trail race, which means the top-two finishers qualify.
McKenzie finished second to American Tara Dower, who set a new course record of 13:31:47, beating Camille Herron’s time set in 2021 by over a half hour. Will Murray also broke the course record in winning the men’s race in 12:10:12, taking almost 33 minutes off Jonathan Rea’s record which was set in 2023.
Speaking of Fast Runs – Yee’s 61:30 in Valencia
Olympic gold medalist Alex Yee continued his 2025 running efforts at the Valencia Half Marathon, a tune-up for the Valencia Marathon he’ll be running in a month and a half. (We wrote about Yee’s running plans for this year last month.)
Yee’s time put him 19th overall and, after the race, he expressed disappointment with his time – “I felt like a I had a minute more but determined to learn and grow from it!” he wrote after the race.
As far as I know, that makes Yee the second-fastest triathlete over the distance – American Morgan Pearson ran 1:01:01 at the Houston Half Marathon in January.
Sanders Out for Marbella
In a video posted earlier today, Lionel Sanders said that he won’t be racing at the IRONMAN World Championship in Marbella in just under two weeks. He says his hopes of doing the race had been too ambitious, and he’s going to take more time to prepare and make his comeback at IRONMAN 70.3 Indian Wells in December.
Sanders won at 70.3 Oceanside and St. George to start the year, but has been off ever since with injuries.
Schär and Riddle Blast in Barcelona
Photo: Challenge Barcelona
Switzerland’s Cathia Schär and South Africa’s Jamie Riddle were the class of the fields at Challenge Barcelona on the weekend. This was the first time that the Challenge event in Barcelona hosted a half-distance race, and, according to race organizers, there were over 60 pro athletes registered for the race and almost 3,000 registered athletes.
Race day featured cool, rainy conditions that made for a challenging (sorry, couldn’t resist) day.
Photo: Challenge Barcelona
Schär was fresh off a win in her debut over the distance at Challenge Peguera Mallorca the week before and kept her winning streak going with the win (4:07:29) over Great Britain’s Sophia Green (4:09:54) and Italy’s Marta Bernardi (4:12:59).
Riddle, who competed in Paris last year and is coming off a 10th-place finish at the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice, took the win in his Challenge Family debut, crossing the line in 3:36:39, over five minutes ahead of Spain’s Carlos Oliver Vives (3:41:45) and Austria’s Martin Demuth (3:41:53).
Results can be found here.
Arnold and Federico Tops at 70.3 Florianopolis
Florianopolis, the site of the full-distance IRONMAN Brazil (it was on June 1 this year), hosted a 70.3 race this weekend with Brazilian Olympian Djenyfer Arnold taking the win. She had trailed countrywomen Vittoria Lopes and Pamella Oliveira out of the water, and was still well behind Lopes off the bike, but used the days second-fastest run to easily pull clear for the win (4:00:56). Lopes hung tough for second (4:05:10), while Argentina’s Romina Biagioli (4:07:20) used the days fastest run (1:22:17 – 20 seconds quicker than Arnold) to run her way to third ahead of Oliveira.
Uruguay’s Federico Scarabino used the day’s fastest swim and bike splits to get to T2 with a lead of almost two minutes over Argentina’s Luciano Taccone. Scarabino was never really threatened, taking the win in 3:35:11, with Taccone hitting the line second (3:36:34). Brazil’s Fernando Toldi rounded out the podium with the day’s fastest run (1:14:32) in 3:39:08.
Sandrini and Nygaard-Priester Tops at Forte Village
Set in beautiful Sardinia, Challenge Forte Village has long been renowned for its spectacular course. Photographer Jose Luis Hourcade was on hand this weekend to capture photos from the race, which was won by Italy’s Sara Sandrini (4:16:47). The Italian used the day’s fastest bike and run splits to get ahead of the swim leader, Aussie Nicole Van Der Kaay (4:19:12). Rounding out the podium was France’s Nikita Paskiewiez (4:23:51).
Germany’s Lasse Nygaard-Priester was just 10 seconds behind countryman Lasse Lührs out of the water and the two would stay together though the beautiful bike ride. (Brit Will Draper had the day’s fastest ride, but the two Germans put up the second- and third-fastest splits.) Nygaard-Priester would use the day’s fastest run split (1:06:48) to pull clear and take the win in 3:37:43. Lührs would hang on for second (3:40:20) just ahead of Great Britain’s Louis Buttrick, who ran past Draper to round out the podium in 3:40:26.
As promised, here are those photos from the race taken by Jose Luis Hourcade:
Beth has a doping ban in her past, pretty sure that makes her ineligible for ws100. Unless they’ve changed their rules?
I wonder if McKenzie is going to petition the WSER Board to get an entry. They have a policy of not allowing anyone who has ever served a doping ban to enter. She appealed after a previous win that awarded a golden ticket and was denied.
It’s hard to overstate how beautiful and awesome McDowell Mountain park is and those trails. We used to live 10min from the park entrance, a bit further now.
nice man, sounds great. was it suitable as a regular training ground on mtb and for hiking and running etc? or too technical?
All of the above! Technical stuff, easier stuff, lots of up and down, it’s a playground!
Curious to understand why you’re writing about Beth McKenzie running at Western States? There isn’t a whole lot of trail running content on this site and she has been inactive as a triathlete for over 5 years. And I understand I’m being pedantic, I just don’t understand the draw…but then I saw Slowtwitch featured her last year talking about trail running.
Saw she was here at the Javelina 100.
If we’re talking about Javelina the better story was David Roche passing off his golden ticket to WS100 to the athlete he coached, Canyon Woodward, who finished behind him in 3rd.
We’ve been covering more trail run / run specific stuff for the last couple of years
But usually we try to tie it back to names people around here recognize a bit more before going fully into the deep end.
Didn’t Beth briefly comeback to race after serving her ban? I can’t recall. I met Beth and her ex James Walsh back in like 2008 when they were both AG’ers. James had a brief pro career and then she got her pro license.
She had a full race schedule for two years following her ban and then everyone knows what happened in 2020.
ajax would know. imagine ajax as your colleague. the amount of time that gets pumped onto ST absolutely zero gets done at work.
I guess if you guys want to write about the Javelina 100, write about the whole thing.
We’re still identifying what events we want to cover with more depth (like we did for WSER and UTMB this year) and which ones we’re more likely to dabble and cover when something notable happens.
Dude read the article or dont read the article.
bro was rage baited by this article, tbh. think the take is fair enough.