On Sunday in the 70.3 St. Polten over 2,500 athletes look forward to better weather conditions than in previous years. Starting in the Ratzersdorfer lake and 1.9 km swim that is interrupted by a 200 m crossing the bridge, its the usual swim and cycling route. But this year the run section has changed after some resentment among some athletes, as it repeatedly went by the tennis stadium. Instead this year there's an Ironmile. Also new to the run route the St. Pölten old town is included.
Mens Favorite Filip Ospaly has had to cancel due to a knee injury. The three-time winner of 70.3 St. Pölten was hoping to add another title to his name.
Many International competitors are here including Marino Vanhoencker of Belgium. Eneko Llanos of Spain, Matthias Hecht from Switzerland and the two Italians Alessandro Degasperi and Alberto Casadei and Brits Ritchie Nicholls & Dan Halksworth.
Andreas Giglmayr will start his first half distance race in Austria looking to improve on his 2nd place at the Challenge Rimini.
Michi Weiss starts for the first time in Austria after his doping ban and has only one thing on his mind "I want the win in my home race here at 70.3 St. Pölten,"
For the professional women, the field is led by defending champion Lisa Hütthaler. Highly motivated by her success in 70.3 Mallorca, where she was able to repeat her win from last year, " Im in the right shape," beamed the defending champion.
Yvonne van Vlerken comes in as a past winner of this race but is not fully recovered from a training accident while in her home town in the Netherlands. Erika Csomor also a past winner here wants to show she to is carrying her good form from late last year. Gina Crawford will also be looking to show her good form of late with 3rd place at 70.3 Pay d’Aix one week ago and 4th at Challenge Rimini the week previous.
From Germany we have Svenja Bazlen, Daniela Sämmler, Natascha Schmitt, Katja Konschak and Katharina Grohmann a whole handful of athletes who can compete for podium finishes.
The other local Austrian professional women at the start are Michi Herlbauer, Kamila Polak, Michaela Rudolf and Bianca Steurer who will all want to be in the mix on race day.
MALE PROS FEMALE PROS
1.Filip Ospalý 51.Lisa Hütthaler
2.Michael Weiss 52.Yvonne Van Vlerken
3.Marino Vanhoenacker 53.Erika Csomor
4.Ritchie Nicholls 54.Simone Brändli
5.Alessandro Degasperi 55.Natascha Badmann
7.Dan Halksworth 57.Holly Lawrence
8.Eneko Llanos 58.Astrid Ganzow
9.Mark Threlfall 59.Natascha Schmitt
10.Andreas Giglmayr 60.Michaela Rudolf
11.Christoph Schlagbauer 61.Daniela Saemmler
12.Paul Reitmayr 62.Bianca Steurer
13.Georg Swoboda 64.Katja Konschak
14.Vincent Rieß 65.Kamila Polak
15.Martin Kleinl 66.Lenka Králová
16.Markus Mlinar 68.Katharina Grohmann
17.Daniel Niederreiter 69.Michi Herlbauer
18.Martin Babusik 70.Kaisa Lehtonen
19.Esben Hovgaard 71.Svenja Bazlen
20.Allen Olesen 72.Gina Crawford
21.Marc Duelsen
22.David Jilek
23.Lukas Polan
25.Michal Kulich
26.Marek Nemcik
27.Chistian Ravn
28.Ivan Jezko
29.Andreas Borch
30.Pieter Heemeryck
31.Christian Jais
33.Patrick Lange
34.Michael Van Cleven
35.Stephan Trettin
36.Christian Kramer
37.Johannes Moldan
39.Roland Schlappal
40.Paul Schuster
42.Sean Donnelly
43.Roman Krutina
45.Daniel Herlbauer
46.Per Bittner
47.Matic Modic
48.Jens Frommhold
50.Thomas Steger
80.Antony Costes
81.David Plese
82.Denis Šketako
83.Roman Deisenhofer
84.Philipp Podsiedlik
85.Mathias Hecht
86.Alberto Casadei