Portugal’s Bruno Pais and Denmark’s Michelle Vesterby win the inaugural IRONMAN 70.3 Budapest.
Dark horse runs to the title
Bruno Pais entered the race as one of the dark horses. The two-time Olympian trailed Benjamin Sanson (FRA) and Alberto Casadei (ITA) out of the Kopaszi Bay by almost a minute with his 23:01 swim split. Along with Pais, Maxim Kriat from the Ukraine (23:29) and Switzerland’s Ronnie Schildknecht (23:54) where dropped behind. Although Schildknecht was thought to be the best biker in the field, Pais hammered onto the course like a short-distance racer. It took him only a few kilometers to catch the leaders and, by the time Pais, Casadei and Sanson came off the bike in 2:23:30 they were about 90 seconds ahead of Kriat and Schildknecht. Schildknecht would run his way to third in 3:51:23. Pais had an excellent run (1:12:34) to win his first IRONMAN 70.3 title in 3:47:39, while Casadei hung on for second (3:48:49).
Danish domination
Michelle Vesterby was using this race through the exciting UNESCO World Heritage city as a hard competition test for the IRONMAN World Championship on October 11th. The 30-year-old Dane seems to be in great shape for Kona both mentally and physically. Vesterby came to Budapest to win and she made that clear as soon as the gun went off. Vesterby had the best swim (24:20), followed by Hungarian Olympic-distance specialist Greta Horvath (24:21). Julian Straub from Germany was in third place, but already far behind (26:36), while co-favorite Erika Csomor came out of the water in seventh place (29:55). On the bike Vesterby opened up a huge gap thanks to her 2:25:18 split, the fastest of the day. By the time she reached T2 she was already 5:45 ahead of Gabriella Zelinka (HUN) and about eight minutes in front of third-placed Csomor. After a solid 1:25:44 run Vesterby took the title in 4:19:20. Behind her Csomor and Halasz had a great battle for silver, which Csomor won in 4:25:47, just a few seconds ahead of Halasz (4:26:13).
Top 5 Women
1.Michelle Vesterby DEN 4:19:20
2.Erika Csomor HUN 4:25:47
3.Anna Halasz HUN 4:26:13
4.Milli Polak AUT 4:30:47
5.Juliane Straub GER 4:33:43
Top 5 men
1.Bruno Pais POR 3:47:39
2.Alberto Casadei ITA 3:48:49
3.Ronnie Schildknecht SUI 3:51:23
4.Maxim Kriat RUS 3:53:17
5.Markus Thomschke GER 3:55:17