Matt Trautmann and Kimberley Morrison posted highlight results at the inaugural Nokia Tyres IRONMAN 70.3 Finland. Although the city of Lahti is very famous for winter sports, this new race brought fresh summer color to the European race calendar; a beautiful landscape perfectly mixed with thrilling competitions both in the men’s and women’s race.
Swiss Manuel Kueng set the race on fire in the water. He took over the lead once the race was started in the late afternoon. Kueng exited the water in a small lead group together with Martijn Dekker (NED) and Panu Lieto (FIN) before he opened up a gap on the first kilometers of the bike. While co-favorites like Marino Vanhoenacker couldn't get in sight of the podium positions, Kueng led the race on the bike in front of Matt Trautmann. While the spectators waited for the South African to make a move on the bike, it was on Germany’s Johannes Moldan to lead the field into T2. While Moldan dropped out later, Trautmann proved his extraordinary running talent and stormed away.
Morrison was in a similar position compared to Kueng. But in the women’s race, the leader was just too powerful for the rest to follow on the bike. At the half-way point on the course, Morrison already had a six-minute lead. The British leader didn’t show weakness on the bike and especially on the run which didn't let Minna Koistinen (FIN) and Camilla Lindholm Borg (SWE) get any closer than five minutes.
Top 5 Pro Men
1 Trautmann, Matt RSA 3:54:35
2 Kueng, Manuel SUI 3:57:46
3 Kramer, Christian GER 3:58:42
4 Darby, Thomas FIN 4:03:34
5 Dekker, Martijn NED 4:03:56
Top 5 Pro Women
1 Morrison, Kimberley GBR 4:21:53
2 Koistinen, Minna FIN 4:26:50
3 Lindholm Borg, Camilla SWE 4:32:30
4 Soltysiak, Joanna POL 4:33:47
5 Du Luart, Eloise FRA 4:42:14