Race Coverage

A+ Stuff!...UPDATED!

Saturday, 13 July 2019 23:20

MINNEAPOLIS OLYMPIC - The battle for the women's Top Step promised to be epic, even though 2017 champ / 2018 runner-up GABY BUNTEN was not in the  elite lineup. Could newly returned CATHY YNDESTAD, now 40, give defending champ HANNA GRINAKER a run for her money?

CY came into the race with the taste of a course record victory lingering on her palate. She also had a ton of stored Minneapolis Tri memory in her muscle fibers, facts that Grinaker, who has all the repect in the universe for Yndestad, was painfully aware of. Just an "A Game" effort wasn't going to get it done. She needed her "A+" stuff.

(Interestingly, when Cathy applied for the Elite Wave, the SEVEN-TIME Minneapolis Tri champion had to provide proof that she was worthy, i.e. proof of having broken 2:30 at the 32-mile distance. In fairness to LTF, there had been a lot of staff turnover since 2014, the date of Cathy's last appearance.

As expected, CY gapped HG in the swim. She hoped her 2:13 edge would keep her adversary in the rearview mirror as long as possible. Perhaps Hanna would work too hard to catch up, then falter in the run. A fresh Hanna, a former collegiate runner, would be too much to handle in phase three otherwise....

Hanna did make up the time on the bike, but felt crappy for the whole ride. Despite a super split, Hanna's body wasn't right. It couldn't give her what she needed, and it finally told her to stop.

She explained her situation: I think in hindsight, anyone can try to explain why they had an off day right? I woke up feeling off this morning, and tried to put it aside. I felt OK on the swim, pretty terrible on the bike, and couldn’t muster it up to finish the run. I’m bummed but focusing forward.

Though she didn't finish, she pushed Yndestad to her eighth win here in a personal best Olympic time, and a lowering of a long-standing HEATHER LENDWAY course record that had threatened to endure for a many years to come.

Cathy's finish time was  amazing: 2:05:33. An obvious Performance of the Year nomination. The winningest female triathlete in Minnesota history now has in the neighborhood of 75 careeer victories.

Lost in the womano-a-womano battle between CY and HG was the fact that those ladies were stalked by an Indiana transplant who is now a graduate student at The U. Here name is RACHAL ZILINSKAS, and she is the real deal, as  she proved at ultra-competitive Collegiate Nationals (6th overall woman) earlier this season.

Rachel's time was 2:08:46, a clocking which would have won fourteen of the eighteen editions of Minneapolis Olympic.

After the race, Hanna spent quality time getting to know the other fast women, saying: The tri community in MSP has got to be the best in the world. 

We totally agree.

And she had these words about Cathy: She’s wonderful! On and off course!

Once again, we couldn't agree more.  RESULTS

UPDATE: We just learned that the Hanna / Cathy battle was actually a Hanna / Cathy / Rachel battle. RACHEL MENSCH, a top 10 finisher at Nationals last year and the reigning women's champ at Pigman, led for much of the race. CY passed her at about the 5K mark in the run. The former Minnesotan, who now resides in Madison, Wisconsin, succumbed to nutritional issues, but still managed to fight her way onto the podium: 3rd in 2:11:25. We apologize to Rachel, and anyone else who may have been offended by her ommission from our coverage.

COMING SOON: The men's Olympic coverage, as well as coverage of the Minneapolis Sprint Triathlon..