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POY - The women...

Sunday, 18 October 2015 06:10

Minnesota Multisport Awards - 2015 was the "Year of the Woman" in Minnesota, thus selecting four PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR nominees was much tougher than usual. Narrowing the list to four was tough, but here are the official nominees:

MICHELLE ANDRES, 38, East Gull Lake (photo bottom L) - Victory at Ironman Wisconsin - Gender leading bike (5:24:55) and run (3:23:06) splits led to a 10:08:05 finish time, which was 13:52 faster than the 2nd place woman, Kelley O'Mara of California. Andres also won IMOO in 2012.

SUZIE FOX, 31, Chaska (photo below L) - Victory at Lake Waconia. Suzie's time was 1:33:05, which lowered Cathy Yndestad's 2007 course record by 54 seconds, and bettered her own PR by 1:18....

ELAINE NELSON, 35, Duluth (photo above L) - Victory at Apple Duathlon. This year's Apple featured its deepest women's field in its 33-year history. Not only that, the women's field, which produced an unprecedented nine sub-1:40 performances, was arguably stronger than the one assembled for Nationals.

CHRISTINA ROBERTS, 29, St. Louis Park (photo R) - Victory at Heart of the Lakes. A breakout win for Roberts, her time - 1:41:37--was the fastest women's time since Cathy Yndestad's course record in 2009, the year CY was named US Athlete of the Year. The field that Roberts faced was arguably the deepest tri field of the season in Minnesota.

Other athletes whose performances were given serious consideration were BRIDGET MCCOY (Life Time - Minneapolis and Brewhouse), GABY BUNTEN (Maple Grove Olympic and St. Croix Valley Olympic), LISA LENDWAY (Toughman Florida & Trinona Olympic), NICOLE HEININGER (Capitol City), DIANE HANKEE (Oakdale Duathlon) and DANI VSETECKA (Door County Half, Pigman Half).