Ok- let me say unequivocally that I have never had anyone or organised anyone to ride for me or even pace me at a leagl distance in a race- the mere thought of it sickens me. If I had my way Dan I would have the pro women start seperately to all other waves, including the pro men in every Ironman Distance race out there. I will even take it a step further and say that until the pro women in Hawaii start in their own wave and the age-group men start at least 45 minutes behind them, then we will never really have a truely fair Ironman World Championship.
My husband does not plan to ride with me- in fact, it is the absolute opposite- he loaths it. He has even pulled out of races because of it. Unfortunately there are times when I am riding really well and he just doesn't. Cycling is my strength and it is not his. Last weekend he did not ride well- he suffered badly in the cold. I did not ride with him for 180kms. In fact, I hardly even saw him. Unless you were actually there then you really cannot comment just on times alone. I will give you an example- if you look at my race this year at IM Malaysia you will see that I actually have a very similar bike time to a pro male- I didn't even know him and I did not see him from the time I got on the bike until about the 175km mark when he caught me. We had swum together and then I took off on the bike. He slowly but surely cycled his up to me at the 170km mark. Now if you were to just look at the results on paper you would automatically assume I had ridden the entire ride with him but if you ask any athlete or official out there on the day they would tell you that I rode the entire ride solo.
Now will these coincidences diminish over time- well that is just a stupid comment to make. I cannot control what other athletes are doing- I can only control my own race. The only thing that my husband and I can do is to choose different races. If he and my coach had their own way he would never do the same races as me. Pretty sad really as triathlon is how we met and it is a huge part of our lives.
And yes Roth this year was my PB and my first time under 9hrs (this used to be a great time- not anymore!!).

If I had my way Dan I would have the pro women start seperately to all other waves, including the pro men in every Ironman Distance race out there.

which of course you had last year in Placid (with no pro men competing) and managed to handily destroy the field from the front... :)

congrats on the sub 9 BG and thanks for coming on here and posting your comments.

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-----------------------------------------------
www.true-motion.com Triathlete Casual Wear since 2007
(Twitter/FB)

Official Roth Results, public domain info, nothing implied, simply presenting some data....
Cumulative times presented below.
37km bike - Justin 1:48:26, Belinda 1:48:29 (+ 3 secs)
70km bike - Justin 2:43:34, Belinda 2:43:36 (+ 2 secs)
120km bike - Justin 4:03:36, Belinda 4:04:09 (+33 secs)
153km bike - Justin 5:02:58, Belinda 5:02:59 (+1 second)

Dan,

I have jumped in to defend Roth a number of times. I have doe that race 5 times. I, for example, have done IMC 4 times, and when in similar fitness (and age :-)) my times between the two are very very close to each other. I have always found Roth to be accurate despite the naysayers.

Roth is not an easy course either. I have had friends go over to do that race to attemp a PR and blow up because they didn't expect the hills. It can be fast, but that is many times different than easy.

IMHO you see fast times in Roth many years due to factors including 1) not having harsh weather. To me, heat is much harsher than cold or rain 2) The huge crowd and community support 3) Ironman seems to be more serious to the Germans and the German public 4) the soft, flat surface for much of the run 5) the narrow canal can produce a greater draft effect in the swim 6) usually very good, deep, challanging competition that likes to go fast rather than just mark the competition, 7) etc. Many of these reasons are why bigger guys like Timo, Juergen, etc have excelled there.

You have certainly prompted an interesting discussion!

david
www.daviddaggett.wordpress.com

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David
* Ironman for Life! (Blog) * IM Everyday Hero Video * Daggett Shuler Law *
Disclaimer: I have personal and professional relationships with many athletes, vendors, and organizations in the triathlon world.

"Now will these coincidences diminish over time- well that is just a stupid comment to make. I cannot control what other athletes are doing- I can only control my own race."

i might agree with you that it is a stupid comment to make, except you and i had this exact exchange last year. how many of these exchanges would we have to have until it becomes not a stupid comment anymore?

as to the rest of your comment, you're saying can't control what your husband does on the bike ride -- that if he wants to ride just in front, behind, or alongside you, then that's beyond your control. as it happens, i've been in the same sort of situation he's in, with a wife who was second in kona, first in NZ, first in canada, and still holds ironman course records 15 years after they were set. when we were in the same proximity in a race for more than 10 seconds, she told me to get the hell away. and i did. i really do think you do have the power to control that other person's race.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'm not one to normally chime in on this kind of stuff, as I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But if you look at the official photos from the race and type in Justin's number, his wife is visible in the background of several photos ! I don't think this is a coincidence...Poor sportsmanship to have a pacer on the course with you, IMHO.

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Tony Verow MD
Durango, CO 81301
Averow@bresnan.net

I was there , I raced... the course is true.. I swam 50 min in IMA and challenge wanaka and roth this year . as for all this bullshit about belinda having a pacer.... if you knew the girl at all you would know it is a load of crap. in that same swim pack was 10 other males . does this mean they are all pacers ?

f you saw what this girl does in training you would know that sub 9 is not that " fast" so to speak.....

train more and read the forum less and sub 9 might just be possible for you ?

For the love of Pete!!! STFU!!!!

Belinda is one tough cookie and cyclist. Justin can ride where ever the F@#$ he wants.
Belinda doesn't need an escort of the likes of PNF and NB.

those race splits mean jackshit. if you read her post correctly, men would pass her and then she would pass them back 20k later.

What the hell! Go F@#$ train and stop worrying your pretty little minds about trivial shit.

Why not have pacers, its happening in OD races. Runners have been doing it forever. IM is a race not a time trial.

Looking at the publicly available time splits and photos, plus the history quoted by slowman, it is painfully obvious that she and her husband have worked out a strategy whereby he paces her on the bike in numerous races. I don't give a fig how hard she trains, how nice she is, blah, blah blah. They are using a very unsportsmanlike tactic that runs counter to the spirit, if not indeed the rules of IM. It is supposed to be an individual effort, not a paced one. It is one thing to use strong AG'ers that happen to be near the female pros as "rabbits", it is another thing entirely to have your husband "just happen to be nearby". Nice try at misdirection, BTW.

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Tony Verow MD
Durango, CO 81301
Averow@bresnan.net

First hello to everybody.
My name is Thomas J. Vonach and I am the boy-friend, training-mate and manager of Yvonne van Vlerken.
As I have been in Roth this and also last year (not racing, but supporting Yvonne) let me mention some points that might bring some
clearness to questions and doubts:

1.) Accuracy of the course:
The course was measured last year for the insurance-company that stood behind the men´s 50.000,-US$ WB-Bonus (no bonus for the women WB).
This year the course was controlled and judged by the german triathlon federation (DTU) because it was also the german championship LD.
The course was correct as judged by the official organ DTU. I was riding the bike course with my pretty accurate Powertap 1 lap from Swim to Swim plus the last leg to Roth two days before the event, because I was interested myself: 86km for one lap and 8 km to the place where T2 would be placed=94km. Adding a second lap with 86km it would equal a pretty exact 180km or 112mi. The course is as exact as we would wish others to be as well...

2.) WB Bonus & Anti-Doping:
This year there was no WB-Bonus, not for the women nor the men. All the money was invested in Blood-Testing done on Thursday morning, 62 tests had been done. (HB, HK, RETI & OffScore)
28 Urine-Tests post race. All this effort was for having a as clean race as possible and to verify fast times or maybe WB-times. This decision was good and will be an example for other races.

3. Drafting & biketimes:
I was at the course the whole time and the conditions were far away from perfect regarding the weather as we had about 12-14°C and nonstop rain to hard rain. For the girls I can say that there were plenty of RM with them and of course you can´t avoid having some men around you. But as I saw all the girls were riding (had to ride) fairly. Belinda was way ahead in the second lap (escorted by a motor-bike), Erika and Yvonne were pushing incredible hard, but lost lots of time in the wet downhills. And they were staying apart. We told Yvonne to stay away from everybody even more clearly as we didn´t want discussions. And as I saw the other girls did the same. I have been in Kona 6 times and I wish it would be as honest there, even if they Jimi Riccitello and his RM are doing all they can. It is also a question of fairness that has to come from the athletes.
The bike times of both Erika and Yvonne were quite pathetic in accordance to their ability. Yvonne rode a 4:54, Erika as well.
Yvonne did train for a 4:45 to 4:48 and was in Roth several times to train on the course prior to the race. She could tell me bumps and drains around the corner when we were riding on the course with our car, she knows the course blind. We have been in the windtunnel at endless-sports in Austria (watch HERE). She had the best material available.
Belinda did ride pretty hard, though she was shivering on the bike (she forgot her arm-warmers) and looking (sorry Belinda) awfully at 160km. Belinda knew that behind her are two girls that are maybe some of the strongest runners in the curcuit at the moment. So what will you do when you are a great swimmer/cyclist, but maybe are not up to run close/below 3 hours...?
The course is tough, but very fast, if you know how to ride it. The weather was cold and we had east-wind with only 4km/h. All the records, as I have been told, have been set in these wind-conditions as you have tailwind going up Kalvarienberg. We had the best women´s field outside Hawaii this year, and the one who wanted to win had to be under PNF time. The WB came automatically with the win as it seemed.

4.) The run
Belinda had to pay a little for her ride and the fact she was to cold on the bike. Yvonne is from the Netherlands (the weather in Roth on race-day was simmilar to the Dutch summer ;.)) and Erika simply did sit out the rain as she only had one target in mind, beat Yvonne and win the race. To watch the race from outside was pure pain as those two girls were running together and when Yvonne started to run a little quicker Erika would reply and push as well. It happened what should happen: they ran as hard by 24km so one of them had to give in. It was Erika, it could have been Yvonne as well. Yvonne won (she was 4kg lighter than last year, which really helped her on the run) and Erika also broke the old WB by Paula. I have been told by spectators and insiders who also the saw the race back in 1994, that the race in 2008 was very fair compared to what happened 14 years ago. Please be aware: this is not my opinion as by then I didn´t know a lot about Triathlon ;-)
All in all Yvonne managed to be better 6 minutes than the year before, Erika really bettered her time by 22 minutes.

5.) I read that somewhere in the post that Yvonne does not race outside Europe. She was runner up in IM Malaysia this year and qualified for Hawaii there. She raced Clearwater in 2006, got of the bike as the first woman (nobody knew here), and got 5th overall. And raced in IM 70.3 Singapore a week after Almere ´07. She took Bronce at the ITU LD Duathlon WC Richmond/USA and unfortunately chrashed on her bike 2 weeks before Clearwater´07 which caused 23 stitches in her knee. For the fact she hated flying she has been around the globe meanwhile. Yvonne has done four Ironman-distance races by now:
Challenge Roth/GER´07: 8:51:55
Triathlon Almere/NL´07 (25th anniversary): 8:57:54 (bike 4:45:49)
IM Malysia/GER´08 9:35 (everybody who was there knows it´s bloody hot and slow), Belinda won and both where under the old course record.
Challenge Roth/GER´08: 8:45:48

It will be one of the most incredible women´s fields we ever saw in Hawaii in October this year.
I really became a fan of all these great girls. They are really moving and going through changes.
In my opinion they are going through something that the men have already gone through in the past-
they are training harder and harder, more professional and race different as they did in the past.

We have to face it. We guys have to really kick our a***s to move on as they are chasing us...

Thank you for reading
Regards
Tommy

congrats on a fast race to the both of you. looks can be deceiving- but looks like a family relay race. it doesn't even look like you split up when you crossed the timing mats on the bike... nice to see Justin caught up easily in the first segment- but after that first segment- he couldn't break away from you? not saying you drafted- but denying pacing- seems to be a stretch...



Quelle Challenge Roth 2008

3 seconds apart at km 37
2 seconds apart at km 70
1 second apart at km 153
10 seconds apart at bike finish

GRANGER, Justin (AUS)
Swim 00:49:08 transition 1 00:02:06 Bike start 00:51:13 Bike 37km 01:48:26 Bike 70km 02:43:34 Bike 120km 04:03:36 Bike 153km 05:02:58 Bike finish 05:41:04 Bike total 04:49:51

GRANGER, Belinda (AUS)

Swim 00:48:49 transition 1 00:02:01 Bike start 00:50:50 Bike 37km 01:48:29 Bike 70km 02:43:36 Bike 120km 04:04:09 Bike 153km 05:02:59 Bike finish 05:41:14 Bike total 04:50:24

Here's proof that BG was NOT drafting. Of course, it can't cover the whole 5 hours -- this is just 3 min 31 seconds.

But you get the picture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

I'm surprised no one has posted it yet.

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----------------------------------------------------------

keep it simple , keep it real .
--Brett Sutton

But i dont really know that much about bikes. I just sit on em and do as i am told. peddle. hard and fast.
--Chrissie Wellington

I think the best way to get faster is to enjoy it, the more you do the better you get, so go out and enjoy swim, biking and running, and don't feel to constrained and just do lots.
--Stephen Bayliss

Tommy,

Thank you! Great report. Hope to see you in Hawaii!

David
http://www.daviddaggett.wordpress.com

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David
* Ironman for Life! (Blog) * IM Everyday Hero Video * Daggett Shuler Law *
Disclaimer: I have personal and professional relationships with many athletes, vendors, and organizations in the triathlon world.

Thomas, welcome to the forum and thanks for posting. I think that the back and forth from spectators, pros, coaches, and spectators (as well as us far away internetgeeks) allows for a healthy discussion. It was enlightening to read your post and the 6 or 7 different points. I did watch your video (keep it up, it's great to see tri videos out there) - I'm not used to seeing someone with that wand thing trying to test for wind turbulence (I think) but then again I dont live in san diego or texas. Anyway, thanks for coming on here and posting,

as far as the granger splits - yikes, those are scary close...

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//semi retired - old school = http://www.iwilltri.com //

My 2 cents :
I took part in Roth this year.
1550m d+ on a quite hard bike leg (hard by the 100% pedaling and never rest). Christophe Bastie (19x Top10 on IM races) did a lot of times this race and said 177,8km for the bike leg in Roth based on his 305 garmin GPS where he find 180km on a all IMNA.
We were 11 of my team to take part and the average value (I asked everybody to enter an accurate value considering the race tire size and pression) was 178km.
About the marathon run, I did it all with a pretty accurate RS800sd and all the kms are ok except the 41th (200-300 shorter).
For the swim, is it ok, no orientations, waves of limited peoples explain for my time the 1' saved.
About drafting (I swam around 55' and rode a litte more than 4'40), I saw really almost no drafting or drafting intentions, just one guy (in the Top20, I'm not shy to say his name but not 100% sure so I prefer not to hurt the wrong person) in the second lap drafting the relay best riders but except him nobody and one of the top girl (B.G.), unshamely and clearly* drafting a man (the referee told her how long a meter mesure :roll: her as I passed her). I might be wrong but she also ran with MP3 oakley (forbidden no ?). I did almost the same bike leg (based on sensations and on % of the best riders) and rode 20' faster in Kona 2007 than her and here in Roth only 8'. The fat % ?
I let you take the conclusion. It won't change the world, my life, my happiness to practice just my opinion from her and the respect I have for her performance.

*Unshamely and clearly for me is when you're riding at the right side of the road and as someone pass you at the left, you take a quick look behind you and make a wave to be 3m right behind the one that passed you. That's exactly what I saw about B.G. at km 130. I was really sad to see it.

Thank you for that post.

What you are telling us is pretty sad, but that would deliver us the fact that Belinda didn´t have a referee with her as the leading woman.
If this is the way Belinda races she might win some races. But at the same time she destroys her reputation (or maybe has already destroyed it as I am reading
in that forum). To be honest: we had bike-times in races where Belinda and Yvonne raced together and we were wondering about how this can happen that she
is suddenly that much better than Yvonne. We are always believing in the good part of the human. I will forward this post to the people in charge as well.

For the results in Roth: in that case justice came on the run. Which place is worse to end up than the fourth?
But there are a fifth, sixth, sevent and so on. I hope they start to handle drafting like anti-doping, because it is literally the same.

Regards
Tommy

Around km 125, I saw her 100m in front of me. I was gaining time since a guy riding the same pace than me passed her and that she waves to "stick" him. During 5km, no more gain, no referee. Than a motorbike with a referee (man - 40 years old) slowly came from behind, paused a little next to me, to be sure of what he was seeing and than accelerate to Belinda. I passed both as they were talking.

Completely ok with justice, that's a minimum and a good sign.

Thomas- this post is for you and you only- I am incredibly disappointed that you are taking the word of someone you do not know in regard to drafting in Roth. You do, however, know me quite well and we have had many a conversation on drafting and what my feeling are about it.
If there are athletes that want to get on this forum and belittle my riding- well that is their right. But you have seen me ride in many races and you know I do not like drafting. I most certainly did have a draft-buster with me for the entire 180kms- you can call Felix and he will tell you the draft-buster's name. You can then call him and ask him about my riding in Roth. He rode up beside me with about 5kms left and thanked me for a clean race. Of course I rode with a group of men-there were probably aorund 10 of us but we were riding legally. I heard the draft-buster give one warning out to one of the men riding with us and right at the beginning of the ride he gave a warning to another professional woman for being a little close. i did not get given a warning once about being too close.
Thomas- are you trying to tell me that in Malaysia earlier in the year that you were suspiciuos of my ride- so who did I 'suposedly' draft off there seeing as I was out in front solo for the entire ride??
Honestly Thomas I am really disappointed that you have written such crap about me. I have always supported Yvonne- I know what an amazing athlete she is. As far as I am concerned she holds the World Record and has set a new bench mark in the world of Ironman. It is a shame I no longer have the same respect for you.

Hi readers,

Hi Belinda,
Good talk to you on the phone. Belinda, I haven´t seen you drafting,
not in Roth and not Malysia and I never accused you of doing so as I saw both of your rides personally. I only replied to Nick who said that he was an eye-witness on that in Roth.
If you tell me you rode clear I believe you as I haven´t seen something different and I wrote in my reply: I am believing you because I first believe in the good in human.
Roth is one of the fairest races I know and Felix and his team is trying to improve that every year.
One situation that you see in a race can look pretty bad, just like sometimes it happens that somebody gets overtaken by a group
and right then when the last passed him a referee comes and gives him a time-penalty. That can be one stupid moment in a 180km.
It happened to a lot of peole, sometimes ruined their races and their reputation.

So the bottom line for me is as I mentioned in my long post: I saw a clear race and lots of RM.
If somebody tells me something else it can be an argument but it won´t change the fact what I saw. Nothing else I tried to say in my English (which is no my mother tongue).
Sorry when you took it wrong.

So all the best to you and everybody in the forum.
Save racing, save training
Yours in sport
Tommy

   
Hi everybody,

Especially to the ones I know (Belinda, Chris, and Thomas). I just read through the posts and would like top do some comments. I can not speak about the drafting problems during the Ironman period of Roth, when it began here with IM, I was 8 years :-), didn't really know what drafting is by that time. What I know is that once my father took over the race and we decided to go independent we were aware of the problems and decided to go against it. Since two years, we have 60 marshals on the bike, I have 4 motorcycles (2 top men, 2 top women) who are responsible that the media motorcycles stay away from the pros once they got their shots, we have 3 motorcycles with marshals for the leading man and 3 for leading woman who have to stay there permanently. By the way, it was Belinda 3 years ago asking me to get permanent marshals for the woman to solve the problem with Age groupers who simply want to stay with the woman. In regards of the length of the course, I insured 100.000 USD last year with Allianz (one of Germany’s biggest insurance companies) for a new world record. They came and measured everything and only then signed the agreement with me. The course 07 and 08 were exactly the same. The reason why I didn't insure a prem anymore was that we took all the money into anti-doping. 62 blood tests of all the pros, also want to be pros were taken, otherwise they would have been forbidden to start the race. We wanted to send a clear sign out with that. Also 28 tests were done after the race; even 10 age group athletes were tested.
All those things are done because I want to get away from the rumours that always go around such as short course, doped athletes, etc.

Now to Belinda. I don't know what she has done, but I can guarantee that she rode clean!! I have been myself on the motorcycle to follow the bike race. It became obvious to me early on that the woman can do a world record, as despite the rain, we didn't have any wind. For the run this weather was even way better then in the past years. I stayed with the woman during the whole race and went back from Belinda to place 7-8 and then back to her. I never saw her drafting, especially not with Justin, I even find it amusing, as you guys don't know how much Belinda and Justin are afraid of those rumours. Belinda was the best female athlete for the bike, and she knows the course inside out. Yvonne even followed her tip to come as often to Roth as she need to go blind on the course, as it can save you many valuable minutes.
My order to the draft busters, who were with the elite, was to be even more strict with the pros then with the age groupers, to avoid any bad talk. I was with Belinda for about 45 km total during the course and it was absolute fair. The other thing is what you should consider, you couldn’t sit on the wheel of the guy in front because you would not be able to see anything because of the water coming straight in your face.

What I learn from this topic is, that it will take a long time and even more effort to make athletes understand that we are doing all we can to organize a clean, drug-free, drafting free race here.

Dan, what would be really great for us is that I would really be happy to invite you to come next year, either as a participant or I give you a motorcycle so you can see what we are doing here. It would be great, as we I could proof to you and via you, that we really do our best for the sport and rumours go around about Roth, are simply not true any longer.

Let me know if you could come, we will be very happy to arrange accommodation and full access pass for you.

To all of you, train save and hope to see you on one of our finishlines.

Best Felix

P.S. If there are any questions, please also feel free to contact me directly via felix@challenge-roth.de

Mit sportlichen Grüßen / Yours in sport

Felix Walchshöfer

Rennleiter / Race director
__________________________
TEAMChallenge GmbH
Westring 40
91154 Roth
Tel. +49 (0)9171/8955000
Fax +49 (0)9171/99881
E-Mail: info@challenge-roth.de
www.challenge-roth.de
_________________________

bravo.

I have done Klagenfurt 2005 en Roth 2007. What I didn't read here (I just flew through the posts) was that the amazing atmosphere on both races is just pushing athletes forward towards recordtimes. Specially the massive crowd on the sharp climbs are giving you extra adrenaline. I had on my meter (cheap thing) for Klagenfurt 181.2 km en for Roth 178.7 km. So if the RD says it's 180 km, I believe him.

About drafting, I must admit there is some, but in my point of view, it's mostly undeliberate and caused by the combination of narrow roads and thousands of participants. It's simply not possible to maintain your speed and pass riders without some drafting. On both races I saw alot of referees. Indeed in Roth I got myself a yellow card while passing someone.

Both races are simply wunderbar. Fast, but not easy.

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fuck a duck and try to fly

Great post - I hope Dan takes you up on your offer.
I have registered for Roth next year purely based on the photos of the support the community gives this race. After reading your post I also know the race director is truly passionate about the experience as well. Not always the case.
See you in 2009!

I could care less about this nonsense about pacing (not drafting) off of men. If you find someone out there to pace off of (whether it was preplanned or not), more power to you. That's racing in my book. Runners do this all of the time. Honestly, when a race like Roth actively wants someone to come in and break world records, I'm surprised they don't go out and hire Bjorn Andersen or another swim-bike stud to pace Macca to T-2.

The issue I personally would like Belinda to address is why she was wearing Oakley Thumps on the run. I saw them clear as day when I passed her on the run around the 9 km marker. I don't know the rules in Europe, but in the US that kind of crap is an automatic disqualification. I volunteered at a local tri last weekend that had a lot of newbies and I had to spend a lot of time at the T-2 exit asking people to take off their iPods. In my opinion, it's really bad for the sport when the best of the elite are setting a bad example for the newbies like this.

Other than my pet peeve about wearing headphones during a race, congrats on an awesome race.

Chris