Laura Philipp and Andreas Böcherer celebrate the victory in Austria thanks to stunning performances.
Andreas Böcherer nailed down an awesome performance to take his second consecutive win in St. Pölten. The German ruled this race, especially on the bike course, forcing his opponents to show their absolute maximum.
Böcherer controlled the pace during the swim together with Austria’s Martin Bader and exited the water directly behind Bader in 24:54. The Swiss Ruedi Wild and Marino Vanhoenacker were behind those two, but Vanhoenacker had to call it a day soon. Due to a technical issue with a tire the seven-time winner of IRONMAN Austria had to drop out after 30 kilometers. Böcherer seemed to be super relaxed on the bike although the gap to Wild and Austria’s Paul Reitmayr in third was not more than a minute on the first 60 kilometers. On the final part of the bike stretch, Böcherer then put down the hammer, reached T2 with a lead of nearly 3 minutes over Wild and ran straight to win.
The women’s race looked a bit like the competition last year with a great swim performance from Anja Beranek. The defending champion had Russia’s Anastasia Chernenko at her neck when she came out of the water in first place, but strong riders and runners like Yvonne van Vlerken (NED) and Laura Philipp (GER) were almost 2 minutes behind.
Beranek added a fast bike split, but van Vlerken was only 1:18 behind when they started into the half marathon. While the Dutch made up second by second with every kilometer, IRONMAN 70.3 Mallorca champion Philipp was flying on the run course. Thanks to the best half marathon performance she took over the lead after 15 kilometers and let van Vlerken and Beranek battle out for silver behind her.
Top 5 Pro Men
1 Boecherer, Andi DEU 3:52:45
2 Wild, Ruedi CHE 3:54:33
3 Reitmayr, Paul AUT 3:57:33
4 Steger, Thomas AUT 4:01:26
5 Birngruber, Christian AUT 4:03:13
Top 5 Pro Women
1 Philipp, Laura DEU 4:22:33
2 Van Vlerken, Yvonne NLD 4:23:20
3 Beranek, Anja DEU 4:23:25
4 Cheetham, Susie GBR 4:32:08
5 Svensk, Sara SWE 4:34:31