flogazo wrote:
Let me throw in Laura Philipp into that list of Ryf challengers. She still flies under the radar for an American audience, because most of her exploits are Europe-based and had to drop out of the two big races she was signed up for so far (Frankfurt 2018, Roth 2019). But she has won a ton of 70.3s and absolutely blitzed her Ironman debut in Barcelona last year (also 8:30ish if I recall corectly). Since then she's qualified for Kona and seems to be just about getting into shape in time for it after her spring injury...
Anne Haug and Laura Philipp will be the ones to watch IMO at Kona (apart from Ryf and Lucy). Its a pity that Anne has been injured for most of the year but she has certainly found her form. If she is no more than 7-8 mins behind Ryf in T2, who knows??