Riding the high of a top-ten finish at the IRONMAN World Championship brought to you by Amazon just seven day earlier, Andy Potts (USA) flew into Chile to take on the competition at IRONMAN 70.3 Coquimbo.
Exiting the Pacific Ocean with the lead, Potts rode off the front with Felipe Van de Wyngard (CHL) for much of the 90K. Potts put in a big push in the final kilometers of the bike and entered T2 with close to a minute advantage on Van de Wyngard and over four minutes on Santiago Ascenco (BRA).
Once on the run, the front pair ran controlled with a gap ranging from six to eight seconds for much of the first half of the run. Van de Wyngard would inch close to Potts but could never quite bridge the gap, while Ascenco reduced his deficit to just +2:00 through the first 10.5K. Once the lead pair started the second of two laps, Potts upped the pace and Van de Wyngard was unable to match it. With Van de Wyngard faltering, Ascenco made the pass for second while Potts cruised down the finish line chute to clutch the winner's banner in a time of 4:02:30.
The race would quickly shake down to Alicia Kaye (CAN) and Lauren Goss (USA) in the women’s field of four. The pair emerged from the water together and biked most of the ride within seconds of one another. Kaye would open up a leading gap of close to two minutes on Goss in the last 20K, while third and fourth place were facing 14 and 29 minutes deficits at the bike end.
Kaye bumped her lead to +2:22 after 8K of the run and +1:53 at halfway and then started to fade. As her leading gap plummeted, Goss's pace went up. By 19K, Kaye surrendered her lead to Goss, who managed to take the win by a +1:08 margin.
Top 5 Men
1 Potts, Andy USA 4:02:30
2 Ascenco, Santiago BRA 4:03:34
3 Van de Wyngard, Philipe CHL 4:04:32
4 De Elias, Mario ARG 4:09:02
5 Vinuto, Iuri BRA 4:10:25
Top 5 Women
1 Goss, Lauren USA 4:31:47
2 Kaye, Alicia CAN 4:32:55
3 Tastets, Pamela CHL 4:51:29
4 Luniere, Nayara BRA 5:15:43