2008 Ford Ironman World Championships summary video

Checkout this 2008 Ford Ironman World Championships summary video, the underwater swim shots are awemsome:

2008 Ford Ironman World Championship - Results

I spent most of the day on Saturday watching the 2008 Ford Ironman World Championships live on Ironman.com. I missed the start and exit from the swim, but I watched the balance.

Spoiler alert: Don't read the rest if you don't want to know who won!

The men's 2008 Ford Ironman World Champion is Craig Alexander in 08:17:45, which represented a 3 minute improvement over last year's second place performance. Craig lives and trains in Boulder in the summer, so another top level triathlete you could run into during a workout. Keep your eyes open, you know never who you'll run into!

The women's 2008 Ford Ironman World Champion is Chrissie Wellington in 09:06:23, good for 40th overall, defending her title with a convincing 15 minute win over second place.

Some of the interesting points of the race:
** Chrissie Wellington is clearly the top women's triathlete in the world. She won by 15 minutes and that includes 10 minutes standing on the side of the road waiting for tech support to fix a flat tire. If you remove the 10 minute flat time, she wins by 25 minutes and goes under 9 hours. Amazing and she makes it look effortless.
** Chris McCormack was stung by bad luck with a broken gear cable just past the midway point on the bike. Macca was in the top 10 at the time, but was unable to continue due to equipment failure. Macca later joined the online broadcast and he sounded fit, strong and disappointed. He was in the group with Craig Alexander at the time of the bike failure. After catching up with tech support, Macca learned that it would take 20 minutes to fix, he decided the race was lost and decided not to continue. It would have been great to see that finish!
** Andy Potts really surprised me. Andy finished 8th, competing in his very first Iron distance race. Granted, he's the reigning 70.3 World Champion and a two time olympian, but for the first time in Kona, that's an impressive finish. I heard / read that he'd never run past 15 miles (ever) or rode past 100 miles (ever), so that makes it even more impressive. I'd watch out for Andy in the future if he decides to move to Iron distance full time.
** Rutger Beke again exemplified his professionalism. If you watched the Ironman broadcast on NBC last year, you'll recall that they followed one pro triathlete who did not have his "A" race last year, but would not quit out of respect for the other competitors and the race itself. He came back this year for a 4th place finish, really impressive.

It was a good day of watching triathlon. The big disappointment of the day was losing Macca due to equipment failure. I wonder if it would be possible to have backup gear on hand and provide some mechanism/rules for equipment replacement during the race. Frustrating to see the defending champ knocked out due to equipment failure. Or perhaps it's just part of the game and should remain unchanged. What do you think? (Add a comment)

I'll look forward to the NBC broadcast of 2008 Ford Ironman World Championships, likely in December. Hopefully Bicycle Village will again host a viewing party and get Craig Alexander or Chrissie Wellington to speak. (They had Macca last year.)

Checkout all of the 2008 Ford Ironman World Championship results at http://ironman.com/worldchampionship.

2008 Hy-Vee Triathlon

This past weekend, Family Fan Club traveled to Des Moines, Iowa for the 2008 Hy-Vee Triathlon, where the last members of the men's and women's US Olympic Triathlon team were selected. Hunter Kemper and Sarah Haskins secured the final spots on the men's and women's teams respectively. Prior to the Pro's race, there was an age group race with over 2,200 participants, which was a great opportunity to spread the word about Family Fan Club. We partnered with Rasmussen Bike Shop in Des Moines at the Hy-Vee Triathlon Expo to sell and spread the word about Family Fan Club. We met a lot of new and enthusisastic race day supporters, gobbling up rompers, t-shirts, stickers and magnets. The folks at Rasmussen Bike Shop did a great job presenting and promoting our triathlon gear!

The elite race was awesome, with basically the Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Joe Montana of triathlon participating. The prize for the top male and female winner was $200k! That's a lot of cash to swim, bike, run! We caught the tail end of the Women's race, won by Emma Snowsill from Australia. The men quickly followed and it was quite interesting. The swim was about 5 miles from the central transition and finish. We got good position inside the stadium and waited for the athletes to arrive. I was really surprised how quick the swim leg was completed and how tight the cycling pack was. The first group of cyclists entered the stadium for the first of eight laps in a pack of about 25 riders. The action was tight, fast and furious. Each lap had a new leader, but no break aways until the 6th lap when Timothy O'Donnell from the USA broke away with a :30 to 1 minute lead, which seemed significant considering the pace/pack to this point. After the 8th and final lap it was like a NASCAR pitstop in front of the main grandstand with 25 elite cyclists basically finishing simultaneously and sprinting into transition. It was really exciting to watch and everyone was out in under a minute to start the 1st of 4 laps. We quickly discovered that elite Triathlon is all about the run, where to this point in the race all competitors were within a minute or less of each other, it was very close. The run separated the contenders from the pretenders. Rasmussen Henning eventually pulled away for his second consecutive win, again pocketing $200k for the win in 2008 (He won in 2007 also).

The race for the 3rd and final Men's Triathlon Olympic berth was a race between Andy Potts (the reigning 70.3 World Champion) and two time Olympian Hunter Kemper. Hunter pretty much had the lead the entire race and solidified it on the run, claiming the last spot on the 2008 Olympic team. Matt Reed was also at the race, but I suspect that with the win out of hand on the run, he shut it down to avoid injury. $200k is a pretty good incentive, but if the day is lost, no since in pushing it. That's not confirmed, but my guess. Hopefully he's not injured.

Anyway, we had a great time in Iowa, visiting college friends and triathlon. Doesn't get much better than that!