German Markus Rolli dominated the bike stage and coasted to victory while Czech Radka Kahlefeldt outdueled Swiss Caroline Steffen in the closing run stage to keep her crown in the Alveo IRONMAN Davao 70.3 presented by Petron at the Azuela Cove yesterday.
Rolli, clocking 2:00:50 in the bike stage, beat veteran Craig Alexander with a time of 3:49:29 over the 1.9k-90k-21k race. He also topped the opening swim leg in 23:22 then timed 1:22.19 in the run.
Alexander, a former five-time world champion from Australia, settled for second in 3:52:21 while Tim Reed, also from Down Under, placed third in 3:57:18.
“It feels great. The people here are amazing. They were cheering on every meter of the course. It was a great experience. They just pushed me through pain. I suffered big-time in the run,” said Rolli, who joined the pros only in 2017 and won his first 70.3 in Thailand, where he also based his camp in his buildup for the second Mindanao staging of the event organized and conducted by Sunrise Events, Inc.
“I wasn’t actually feeling well but I got a big gap when I started the run, around 8 minutes, so I just gave my best and brought it to him (Alexander),” added Rolli.
Kahlefeldt and Steffen, meanwhile, slugged it out in the swim and bike stages but the former outlasted the latter in the run event to retain the crown in 4:16:52.
“I’m very happy that I could come back and win again,” said Kahlefeldt. “It was tough and the whole race was hard since I had to fight it out with Steffen. It’s never easy to beat her.”
Steffen, winner of past races in the country, failed to match Kahlefeldt’s strides midway in the run part and finished in 4:19:28.
The Czech timed 26:55 in the swim against Steffen’s 26:58 with the former posting a 2:21:49 clocking in the bike against the latter’s 2:21:48. But Kahlefeldt built a one-minute lead after the 9.6km mark in the run then doubled it with a 52:39 clocking in the 13.2km mark against Steffen’s 54:16.
Aussie Kirralee Seidel came in third in 4:28:37 followed by Dimity Lee Duke (4:32:41) and last year’s fourth player Lisa Tyack, also of Australia, (4:39:19).
Seidel kept the leaders in sight with a 27:07 swim start but fell behind after the bike stage where she clocked 2:26:53 and ended with a 1:31:23 effort in the run.
Mauricio Mendez, who rallied to edge Reed in last year’s inaugurals of the event in Davao, suffered a technical problem with his bike and didn’t finish the race.
Backers of the event were title sponsor Alveo, an AyalaLand company, presentor Petron, venue hosts Lungsod ng Dabaw, Azuela Cove and the Enderun Tent, bike course partners Davao del Norte, Panabo, Tagum and Carmen, official courier and logistics partner 2Go Express, official swim cap TYR, official energy gel GU, official nutrition Vitargo, official eyewear Rudy Project, and Aboitiz Power, Davao Light, David’s Salon, Davao Metro Shuttle, Prudential Guarantee, and media partners ONE Sports on Cignal, the Philippine Star, Trilife, AsiaTri.com and Finisher Pix.
