Given the dearth or racing this year there hasn’t been much to talk about so I thought I would revisit this thread I made about 2.5 years ago.
A year after posting we saw Tim O’Donnell place 2nd (behind a record breaking Jan) at the 2019 edition of Kona becoming just the 4th person to ever break 8 on the big island. Ben Hoffman was two spots back in 4th place, and was on pace to run down Kienle for 3rd before running out of real estate. His run split was just 25 seconds slow than Jans that day.
A few months ago we saw Matt Hanson use a strong run to chase down the everyone by Iden and finish 2nd at the stacked PTO championship.
A couple of guys that I didn’t mention but other posters had...
Rudy Von Berg
At the 2019 70.3 word championships in Nice he finished 3rd behind Iden (who has looked unbeatable at the 70.3-ish distance in his past 2 races) and Alistair (whose face would be on the Mount Rushmore of triathlon). A great biker, he has quite a few 70.3 victories and podiums so far. Not sure when he’ll make his full IM debut. At 27, time is on his side.
Sam Long
A quick count on ObsTri shows he has done 30 IM branded races with 13 being full Ironman races. And he is only 25. Is he going to burn himself out or destroy his body at this rate? Who knows, but he’s got a giant motor and a lot of potential. Big questions are can he become a 2nd pack swimmer and can he run well on the big island with his frame?
Matt
A year after posting we saw Tim O’Donnell place 2nd (behind a record breaking Jan) at the 2019 edition of Kona becoming just the 4th person to ever break 8 on the big island. Ben Hoffman was two spots back in 4th place, and was on pace to run down Kienle for 3rd before running out of real estate. His run split was just 25 seconds slow than Jans that day.
A few months ago we saw Matt Hanson use a strong run to chase down the everyone by Iden and finish 2nd at the stacked PTO championship.
A couple of guys that I didn’t mention but other posters had...
Rudy Von Berg
At the 2019 70.3 word championships in Nice he finished 3rd behind Iden (who has looked unbeatable at the 70.3-ish distance in his past 2 races) and Alistair (whose face would be on the Mount Rushmore of triathlon). A great biker, he has quite a few 70.3 victories and podiums so far. Not sure when he’ll make his full IM debut. At 27, time is on his side.
Sam Long
A quick count on ObsTri shows he has done 30 IM branded races with 13 being full Ironman races. And he is only 25. Is he going to burn himself out or destroy his body at this rate? Who knows, but he’s got a giant motor and a lot of potential. Big questions are can he become a 2nd pack swimmer and can he run well on the big island with his frame?
Matt