Sam Betten dominated the men’s pro division while Dimity Lee Duke charged back in the last two events to clinch the women’s tiara as the multi-titled Aussies shared top honors in the second Black Arrow Express 5150 in Subic Bay yesterday.
Betten emerged with best time of 17:45 after the opening swim leg then kept his pace in the bike (57:15) and run (37:53) stages to beat Czech Jakub Langhammer by almost four minutes and reclaim his revered spot on the 5i50 ladder after ruling the Subic races three straight times from 2015. He timed 1:57:22 over the Olympic distance of 1.5k swim-40K bike-10K run.
“Yeah, I was so happy today. I knew that I was really fit. I’ve had a really great six to seven weeks of training in Australia,” said Betten, whose three-title run was halted by fellow Aussie Mitch Robins in last year’s inaugural staging of this event put up by one of the country’s leading cargo movers and organized by Sunrise Events, Inc., now part of the IRONMAN Group.
Robins was actually set for a title-retention campaign but pulled out at the last minute.
But Langhammer, coming off a victory in Davao 5150, proved to be a worthy challenger, keeping Betten in sight after the swim leg with an 18:50 clocking. But he failed to match his rival’s sustained charge in the last two events, finishing with 58:54 in the bike and 38:59 in the run for a 2:01:14 clocking.
Fernando Jose Casares finished third overall in 2:04:35 and took the Asian Elite crown from last year’s winner John Leerams Chicano, who ended up fourth overall with a 2:05:23 clocking.
Duke needed to rally in the bike and run legs to foil New Zealand’s Laura Wood in their side of the duel also marred by the last-minute withdrawal of last year’s winner Manami Iijima of Guam due to injury.
“Coming off an Ironman race, it’s difficult to rise to an Olympic distance level because of all that speed. I was left in the swim but caught Laura on the bike and had a 24-second gap coming into the run where I pulled ahead early in the first few kilometers which was quite surprising,” said Duke, who timed 2:18:25.
