Belgium's Pieter Heemeryck and Lisa Huetthaler from Austria proved their bike strength to take the win at the fifth edition of the Club La Santa IRONMAN 70.3 Lanzarote.
Pieter Heemeryck celebrated a great first IRONMAN 70.3 win at the Club La Santa IRONMAN 70.3 Lanzarote. The 26-year-old Belgian had a sensational bike ride to make his way on the Canarian island. When he got out of the water, Heemeryck was not too far away from the fastest swimmer Neil Peters. The Luxembourgish exited the water in 24:56 minutes leading men’s pro field ahead of British Stephen Bayliss and Cameron Good from Australia, Heemeryck was in seventh at that point and only 16 seconds behind.
It was the Belgian who set the pace then on the tough and stunning bike course. Heemeryck early opened up a gap on a small chase group including Bayliss, Peters and Thomas Strange from Denmark. When the leader hit the half-way mark, he was already 4 minutes away from the group. Although Heemeryck couldn’t make more ground on his pursuers during the famous Tabayesco climb, he reached T2 with an advantage of 4:10 over Italian Domenico Passuello and his fellow countryman Kenneth Vandriessche. While Bayliss, Peters and Strange lost more time, both Passuello and Vandriessche added a great bike ride after a weaker swim and they immediately started to battle out silver and bronze right after on the run.
Thanks to the fastest run of the day, Vandriessche was a happy runner-up at the end of a sunny day in Lanzarote although he couldn’t make up any meter on Heemeryck.
In women's race, a strong biker took over control early in the race. Austria’s Lisa Huetthaler is well known for her bike strength and she proved her skills at the 5th edition of the IRONMAN 70.3 Lanzarote again. When the 33-year-old came out of the water, she was not too far behind American leader Kelsey Withrow who had the fastest swim in 26:02 minutes. The gap to first place was 2:37 minutes, when Huetthaler exited the Lagoon in front of the Club La Santa, and she started hammering to the front as expected on the bike then.
Through 45 kilometers Huetthaler led the race by one minute over Maria Czesnik from Poland. Shortly after this timing, Czesnik made a move to the front, but on the way to the top of Tabayesco the Austrian battled herself back into first place. Huetthaler reached T2 with an advantage of more than three minutes, and she had no issues to take the win on the run. Meanwhile, Czesnik already could feel a storming Spaniard coming up at the end of the bike leg: Judith Cocharan Vaquera jumped off her bike only 50 seconds later than Czesnik, and they both fought hard for runner-up position from that moment on. With seven kilometers to go, they ran shoulder by shoulder and everyone was waiting for a sprint finish. But Czesnik could find some energy left in the tank to eventually run into second place on the final kilometer.
Top 5 Pro Men
1 Heemeryck, Pieter BEL 4:08:22
2 Vandendriessche, Kenneth BEL 4:12:47
3 Passuello, Domenico ITA 4:15:43
4 Swolfs, Sanne BEL 4:21:38
5 Marrero Avero, Rayco ESP 4:22:26
Top 5 Pro Women
1 Hütthaler, Lisa AUT 4:47:06
2 Czesnik, Maria POL 4:50:37
3 Corachán Vaquera, Judith ESP 4:51:04
4 Schulz, Jenny DEU 4:55:47
5 Bélanger, Valérie CAN 4:58:00