TRIATHLON – Bahrain Victorious 13 athletes Kat Matthews and Taylor Knibb put in sensational performances in their season-opening event, held in the US.
Matthews, the reigning Ironman Pro Series champion, and Knibb, the three-time Ironman 70.3 world champion, took gold and silver, respectively, at the Ironman Texas North American Championship.
For Matthews, it wasn’t just her third consecutive win and a new personal best – her finish of eight hours 10 minutes and 34 seconds is the new fastest time recorded by a female athlete for a full-distance Ironman.
Knibb, meanwhile, led for most of the day on the bike after emerging from the 3.8-kilometre swim in second. She then blitzed the 180km bike leg in 4:19:46 to set the fastest-ever Ironman bike split, despite tripping as she dismounted.
Just under six minutes in arrears after the swim, Matthews limited the damage by riding the day’s second-fastest bike time and keeping the deficit to Knibb steady as she began the run. Chasing down the American, the British athlete made use of her strongest discipline to run the day’s fastest marathon, taking the lead near the 16km mark and finishing nearly 10 minutes ahead of Knibb and the rest of the field.
“I’m really proud to pull together that [performance] against this field,” said Matthews. “Seriously, I’m really happy.
“I wasn’t feeling great to be honest – I thought I’d just ease into it, but the speed came quite easily. I feel lucky to sort of claw back time really quickly and stay positive for most of it.”
Knibb had a finishing mark of 8:20:15 behind Matthews while Lisa Perterer of Austria secured the bronze medal in 8:28:17.
In the men’s field, Kacper Stepniak debuted in the Bahrain Victorious 13 racing red with a strong top 10 finish in 7:45:05.
Taking the men’s gold medal was Kristian Blummenfelt of Norway in 7:24:20, while Spaniard Antonio Benito secured silver in 7:32:23. Rudy Von Berg of the US completed the top three in 7:33:26.
At Ironman 70.3 Valencia, India Lee finished sixth with a time of 4:09:06, brushing off the memories of her heat-induced DNF at Singapore T100 three weeks ago.
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