Swiss Philipp Koutny enjoyed the sweet taste of victory at the inaugural IRONMAN Tallinn. He had been on the hunt all day long and eventually took it all. The 35-year-old was full of emotion at the finish line, thanks to the fact that he won his first-ever IRONMAN at the first ever full-distance event in Estonia. After ranking ninth at the IRONMAN South African Championship in April and taking sixth at the IRONMAN European Championship in Frankfurt four weeks ago, it hadn’t been in Koutny's original plan to hit the start line in Tallinn. His main focus had been on the traditional battle of the best Swiss professional athletes in Zurich the week before. But he had to drop out at the IRONMAN Switzerland and decided to head the long way to Estonia after that.
Once in the race, Koutny and his fellow competitors knew that they would have to race smart and be patient. It was no surprise that Marko Albert would hammer to the front in his home race. The Estonian triathlon hero is well known as an extraordinary swimmer, and he did what he was supposed to do. Although the water was cold, Albert managed a low 46- minute swim. This was fast enough to open up a gap of 3:30 on Koutny and a group of six athletes. When Albert exited the bike 4:19:01 later, the gap to the chase group was 4:20. The Estonian leader paced himself steady to keep his advantage alive on the run, but the splits behind him were always a bit faster. Especially Marc Duelsen and Markus Thomschke from Germany made time on Albert and Koutny. While Thomschke couldn’t stay the pace, Koutny started eating up second by second decisively and took over the lead with 7 k to go. Duelsen ran into second place just as he had done three weeks ago at IRONMAN UK.
Top 5 Pro Men
1 Koutny, Philipp SUI 8:01:18
2 Duelsen, Marc GER 8:06:15
3 Albert, Marko EST 8:07:10
4 Badar, Gergo HUN 8:10:01
5 Thomschke, Markus GER 8:10:28