Ironman South Africa 2007: Gerrit Schellens and Natasha Badmann win again
March 23rd, 2007 by nikola
It is not obvious but Ironman South Africa is one of the tougher races you can do. I have not done any other Ironman races yet but I am sure of this. Lanzarote and UK and Zurich have the hills and maybe some wind, but the Port Elizabeth combination of waves, hills and killer wind can not be matched in many other places.
That is what makes Bjorn Andersson’s 4:20 so amazing! And his crazy aero position!
First the cycling route is a bit shorter, at least when I did it last year I had around 177km on my Polar. I will check with others these days if they had similar distances. This, in no way, makes Bjorn Andersson’s ride any less impressive. He was more than 8 minutes ahead of second placed cyclist Raynard Tissink. When Andersson got of the bike it seamed like an eternity until Raynard showed up. With the hills and the wind this is an amazing ride.
Which of course resulted in a horrible run… I could not even find Andersson in the results… I guess he faded away… Maybe a career change would be in order - cycling seams to fit him better than triathlon.
Second amazing moment of the race was Gerrit Schellens super fast fun of 2:43.
Again, there is talk that the course is short, but still. It has 400m elevation and he outdid his marathon time from last year by 5mins. I saw him start the run (I will publish the video soon) and I saw him finish the run and in both situation he ran an equal crazy pace of well under 4min/km. This was enough for Gerrit to again take the title from the local golden boy - Raynard Tissink.
Just to make the whole story worst Raynard Tissink moved to Port Elizabeth last year, he has a ton of local sponsors and this race is obviously very very very important for him. One thing is to win somewhere else, far away, but here, he was in front of his crowd, his people. Every time he passed people screamed like crazy, while the rest of the pro field did not get much more than a lazy clap.
Ironman South Africa is supposed to be Raynard Tissink’s race but he has not been able to win it for last two years because Gerrit Schellens keeps taking the win from him.
Of course there are many stories about drafting, racing, whatever, the usually blah blah, but at the end of the day it is Gerrit that wins and Raynard comes second.
Natasha Badmann on the other hand wakes up on the morning of the race, does 9:20 something as if it was watching TV and goes on with whatever she planned for the rest of the day. In the mean time she manages the public as if she is running for president - she says all the right things and shakes every hand. For my taste too perfect, I like athletes that have some little mess somewhere, but her style seams to work for all the middle aged middle class spectators and there is nothing wrong with it. Just not my thing.
Although I have to admire her talent and power. She is a perfect Ironman machine once you take out all the PR. I think even much more tougher than Paula Newby-Fraser was, since back in the old days there was not so much competition. Natasha Badmann wins against some tough ladies and she keeps winning again and again.
Maybe this is why there is not much betting around triathlon?
Overall it was awesome to watch the race - for a change. And I got a lot of energy for the races that await me.
Keep checking my other blog TriCape.com for more information about Ironman South Africa 2007. I will also post photos and videos soon.
