Race Coverage

Medals For Taylor & Ewers...

Sunday, 09 October 2011 00:00

(Vintage Timberman Photo - Greg Taylor after an all-out effort. An all-out effort at Kona yesterday earned Taylor another gold medal.)

Hawaiian Ironman XXXIII - Lotsa cool stuff happened at yesterday's World Champs, ...

starting with Craig Alexander's 8:03:56 course record. And it wasn't easy for the seemingly invincible Chrissie Wellington to stay that way. She and runner-up Mirinda Carfrae needed to run their already diminutive buns off--2:52:41 and 2:52:09, respectively--in order to post sub 9-hour efforts. Both girls were more than 20 minutes behind the leader when they entered T2.

Other highlights included the pulverization of both gender's Masters course records. Two 40+ men--Switzerland's uber cylcist (4:35:16!) Andrea Zamboni and apparent shoo-in for the US Master of the Year award (for the 2nd straight year), Curt Chesney, of Colorado. Zamboni's time was 8:53:26; Chesney's 8:54:55.

The women's master's champion was also the overall fastest female AGer. Not only that. She turned in the fastest female AG time ever at Kona by a ton and a half: 9:32:05. A truly sick time! Germany's Beate Goertz, 41, who set a World Masters Best 9:18! at Ironman Austria earlier this year, is that special athlete. She set the 40-44W record here in 2010, a 9:02, but obliterated that yesterday by a half hour.

By the way, two 40-44W broke 10. The other was Californian Susanne Davis (9:51:41), who also cracked the 10-hour barrier in '10.

In all, a record nine women dipped under the 10-hour mark, two more than in 2010. One of those girls was Jennifer Sloan of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who many in our region may remember as the women who set a new amateur women's CR at Pigman Half, just 34 seconds in front of New Hope's Kortney Haag.

Two Minnesotans medalled in their AGs yesterday. Greg Taylor, 57, who is actually a South Dakotan now, having relocated from Mankato not long ago, won the 55-59M group (10:03:43, 11:45 ahead of runner-up Gary Burgess of New Zealand); and Ben Ewers, 65, of North Oaks, silvered in his division; his time--11:28:37--was faster than the previous 65-69M CR. Taylor has podiumed at Kona on many occasions and even held the Masters Record (9:07) for a period of time in the 90s, when he was based in Ketchum, Idaho.

Here's how the other Loon Staters fared: scott