iron_mike wrote:
well, it's race day. some interesting things happening so far: on the women's . . . :
-ryf had a middling swim, coming out of the water 3rd at +4 minutes.
-but then she's been losing time since, and sits a 7 minutes at 100km into the bike, 7th place and riding slower than the rest of the top 10.
-is this just off-day ryf? or is she waiting to pounce later in the bike? she'd feel OK about outrunning most of these girls, but not from a huge deficit.
with 4x kona slots each for males and females i'm a little surprised more athletes didn't show up. could be a good opportunity, . . .
De Boer (already IMWCQ) and Jansen look like the two runners who could make the time on the leader after T2. Bleymehl has some good marathons (Kona not a favourite venue). She is, I think, coached by Geesmann (also coach of Lange and Matthews) so her running might have stepped up, and she has a good buffer on those behind.
On numbers, I suspect that the IM Pro Series has sucked some of the sub-T100 athletes away from this in favour of Texas, or delaying to Hamurg (WPro) if they think an IM Pro Series top ten result is within reach. Money's good here though, and as you say: IMWCQ slots available (effectively top 6 for the women).
https://www.trirating.com/...april-21st-seedings/
I wonder why Horseau decided not to race: moving house maybe?