Eric Lagerstrom (USA), a former ITU athlete who made his IRONMAN 70.3 debut at Oceanside this year looked like a seasoned distance racer in Michigan. The 29-year-old carried a minute and a half lead out of the water and limited the damage inflicted on the bike by the pair of strong cyclists, Andrew Starykowicz (USA) and Igor Amorelli (BRA). Lagerstrom hit the dismount line in second sandwiched between Starykowicz (leader) and Amorelli (third) with a mere 29 seconds separating the trio.
Lagerstom stormed through T1 and hit the run just 9 seconds back of the Starykowicz and 9 seconds ahead of Amorelli. Lagerstrom made quick work of taking the lead, overtaking Starykowicz in the open mile of the run and from there built upon his advantage throughout the run and went on the claim the win by a winning margin +3:38 on Starykowicz and +4:13 on Amorelli.
Sarah Haskins (USA) put together a flawless wire-to-wire win's in Benton Harbor after a 2.5 year hiatus from racing at the distance. She exited the water with over a minute gap to her closest rival and rode a solo effort off the front of the race for the entire 56 miles of the bike.
Haskins hit the run with solid leads of 2:19 to +4:29 on the top five women. Jackie Hering (USA) started the run in fourth, and facing a +3:48 deficit to Haskins, managed to chew the leaders advantage to +1:18 at the conclusion of the first half of the run. With four miles remaining in the run, Hering was within a minute of the leader. Haskins must have got some word of the action behind her, as she upped her pace in the closing miles and claimed the victory by a winning margin of +1:27 over Hering.
Top 5 Pro Men
1 Lagerstrom, Eric USA 3:48:02
2 Starykowicz, Andrew USA 3:51:40
3 Amorelli, Igor BRA 3:52:15
4 Laundry, Jackson CAN 3:55:32
5 Tollakson, TJ USA 4:02:59
Top 5 Pro Women
1 Haskins, Sarah USA 4:16:19
2 Hering, Jackie USA 4:17:46
3 Cross, Christine USA 4:24:08
4 Benner, Holly USA 4:24:29
5 Patterson, Julie USA 4:26:12