Raynard Tissink get's 7th with a 4 min time penalty.
As expected Andy Potts was first out of the water in 23:19 and Kevin Collington surprised quite a few folks with his great swim that allowed him to reach T1 next, about 30 seconds later. After Collington a whole bunch led by Paul Matthews emerged from the waters about 1 minute down on Potts.
Chris Lieto quickly moved up on the bike and soon after was riding at the front of the race with Matthews, Raynard Tissink, Joe Gambles, Paul Ambrose, Craig Alexander, Matt Lieto and Fraser Cartmell. After about 30 miles Lieto decided to move on and he pulled away from the bunch and there was nothing anyone could do. Alexander got a flat and was quite lucky that tech support was right there to take care of the situation. A bit later Raynard Tissink also pulled away from the chasing pack and managed to get an advantage, but somewhere before he had collected a penalty that he would have to serve later. Lieto reached T2 first with a nice advantage and Tissink indeed had to stand down for 4 minutes. That meant Matthews and Alexander were the closest pursuers also about 4 minutes down.
But Alexander showed on the run that he is again in superb shape. His 1:11:50 run split was clearly best on the day and allowed him to easily reel in long time leader Chris Lieto and take his second 70.3 World Championship crown, and his fourth World Championship title in total. Lieto though hung tough and grabbed second place while a super happy Jeff Symonds finished third, most likely his best result to date.
"I think it is great having this race ahead of Kona. The course itself was everything I hoped it would be. It was super tough out there all day long and the heat made it even harder for us," said Alexander.
Mountain Bikes