IRONMAN 70.3 Aix-en-Provence | Men’s & Women’s Highlights

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Hey everyone, welcome to the seventh race of the Iron Man Pro Series. Iron Man 70.3 Exxon Provence. I can’t believe we’re already down that many races in this season. It is one race after the other right now and this one had a $50,000 prize purse as well as three slots for both the men and the women to the upcoming 70.3 World Championship in Marba. We had two good startlists again and of course on the men’s side it was the Norwegians making the headlines again. Could they finally find themselves on a podium together again like they had done only once previously before in the shortc course world? We’d have to wait and see. But Christian Blumfelt was for sure the favorite coming into this one after his Iron Man Texas performance, but would that still be in his legs? His training didn’t seem to show that it was. We had a couple other big names in here. the likes of Pierre Laor who was coming off of an insane run a couple weeks ago at Iron Man Venice Solo and so many other guys including some other pro series contenders like Leon Shiovalier. So starting off with the swim, this would be a good one to see how this European field compared to this North American St. George field we saw last week. And right away we could tell that there was a much bigger front pack here than there was there. And a lot of top top swimmers causing the speed to be rapid here. The likes of Sam Dickinson, Madia Chetcherelli at first pushing the pace and then eventually Yonas Shamberg coming to the four and you can really tell his stroke, his big long loping style that he has. But their speed wasn’t enough to break the pack apart. ended up being about 22 guys coming into transition altogether. Casper Stors was the fastest Norwegian in the swim. Christian was quite a bit back in this pack, but still within touching distance, unlike his compatriot Gustaf Eden, who actually swam faster than he did at Oceanside 70.3. But when it is a big pack like this, sometimes you can miss it just because it’s so chaotic at the start. As Casper Sword said afterwards, very chaotic swim and uh I managed to get to the front by the way back and it looks like that might have cost Gustaf not being able to find his way into the right spot to get in this front pack. Sam Dickson and Yonas were the quickest out of transition. They were out like a bullet. Pier Laor was right there on their heels but then had to turn around quickly obviously forgetting something and then having to run back and get started a little bit later in the pack. His bike was the big question for this race. It was what cost him the opportunity to fight for the win in Venice. So, we’d have to see how well he went here. Right off the bat, it was Sam Dickinson pushing the pace. Ya Shamberg right behind him. British Olympian has a strong set of bike legs. We know that after he helped pace Alex Ye at the Olympics in Paris. Alex Yei has said he is keeping an eye out on him in the middle distance and expects him to do extremely well. He’s had some good results. so far. So, I was excited to see how he went. However, it would take a monumental effort to get rid of the giant pack that was forming behind him. Only Ruben Zapanka, former champion, was able to do that. He raced on the world tour as a pro cyclist for about 3 years. So, makes sense why he was able to get away. Also knows this course very well. But for the rest of them, including the likes of Christian Blumenfell, it proved too much to break this group apart. And right away you can see some of those effects of the pack dynamics and the race ranger being involved with athletes like Cameron Mane here touching on his brakes in the pack to make sure he stays in the right zone. Crazy crazy scenes. At one point though it did look like a group of four or five had managed to split apart including Casper Stors, Christian Bloomfelt, Jonah Shamberg. But after the roads flattened out a little bit again, they all came back together. It was interesting to get so much time on Reuben at the front of this race. See how his position varies to a lot of the other athletes like Jonas Schoberg. He’s a very upright position. His head isn’t quite tucked all the way in below his back like we see a lot of athletes these days compared to Casper Stor example. And it’s relatively similar to the likes of Sam Lelo as well. But Reuben was really the only one enjoying some clean air. Also a fair bit of help, you’d have to say by some of the motorcycles. not his choice, but there was quite a few on screen all day that were riding next to him or in front of him. I’m never a fan of that so much, but that wasn’t bothering me near as much as the motorbikes with this large group. There was often times as I was watching this that I felt quite unsafe as we see, you know, some of these motorbikes riding on the other side of the road when it the roads weren’t closed and then they would duck back in with these two lanes of athletes trying to pass each other. It it definitely didn’t feel like that was meant to be happening. But you even see here this one car having to pull off into the ditch to let the motorbikes go through. That should never be happening in my opinion. Also with all these motorbikes involved, it does give a significant advantage to this group. The guys behind the likes of Gustaf Eden, Leon Shiovalier who missed that front swim pack, they don’t have this advantage of those motorbikes helping move the wind, helping that pace at the front of the race. And because of that, Gustaf Eden Leon would never come close to seeing the front of this race. But even though Reuben might have been getting some help with the motorbikes, he probably wished he wasn’t with this one at all. as they had a pretty close call here with the motorcycle ducking in right next to him while this other car was in front of him and another car coming the other way. You’ll see Reuben here get pretty upset about the situation and point to the motorcycle he’s at. You’d have to imagine he’s asking them to stay right there or behind them cuz they took behind him shortly after this. And as somebody who’s been on these motorcycles before, I do feel bad for the guy on the back of the motorcycle just getting the media. He has really no control over the person driving the motorcycle. So yeah, just a thing I had to point out from this race that I saw quite a bit of. But yeah, Ruben was crushing the bike leg. He ended up breaking his own course record that he set the year before. But the other guys came off the bike about 2 minutes down. Casper Storz lost some time from this group coming right into transition behind the likes of Blumenfeld and Dickinson. And then he lost even more time transitioning another 17 seconds. So keep that in mind. He came out of transition about 30 seconds further back than Christian. But speaking of, Christian was out like a bullet and was immediately onto Simone Vion’s feet and would stay there for pretty much the remainder of the run, enjoying him, pacing him. Simon was having a heck of a day and was enjoying the support of the crowd. So Christian just tagged in behind. But it did make you think, and the way the commentators were talking, was that Iron Man Texas in Christian’s legs? We would soon find out it was not at all. As Simone and Christian quickly caught up to Reuben, they were joined by Jonas Shamberg. Impressively for a little bit, although didn’t last too long, Jonas is infamous in shortc course for taking out runs too fast. He was going at about a 104 pace for the first few kilometers. But then uh I felt that he was breathing quite heavily. So then when Simon was pushing up the pace in the uphill again, he got dropped. But somebody else was doing that as well, and that was Pierre Laor. Sadly, he ended up losing a couple more minutes on the bike to Christian. So, he was two minutes further back. But by halfway on the run, he caught up a minute to Christian. Would he be able to run another minute into him at the second half of the run? Well, that was definitely not going to be the case because Christian turns out, was holding a lot back because he just turned on the Jets, dropped Simone Vion like he was never there. And as well, his compatriate Casper Storz who paced his run impressively to catch up to them just before the final surge from Christian. And that was that. Christian set an unattainable pace and Pierre Laor only ended up going backwards from there as he really faded towards the end of the run. Even though he eventually passed Dickinson, Dickinson eventually took him back at the end of the run. So, he came in fifth. But yeah, Christian Blumenfeld with a 1071 12th pick, but Casper Sa finishing shortly behind him, just over 30 seconds back. Remember how much time he lost in transition? And it might have been a really close finish between them, but I still think Christian had about another minute quicker to run on this, which is just scary to think that guys are now running 107 108 like it’s nothing. That’s the new standard these days. Lionel we’ve heard has been saying that. And yeah, I’m sure we will see times like we saw Yon Fino set back in 2018 at the 70.3 World Champs in South Africa where he went 10630 there. So, I’m sure that is in Christian’s legs right now. My one hot question then for you is how do you think Christian would do at the T100 series right now? Do you think he’s the best over the middle distance or the best athlete long course right now? Would he take on Hayden Wild, Martin Van Real? Would he beat them? Let me know in the comments what you think. But coming up next for Christian, you might have thought was Iron Man Frank for the next race on the Pro Series for him, Gustaf, and Casper, but it’s actually a shortc course race. He’s going back to race WTCS Algarero, which is crazy to think then he will have done a full Iron Man 70.3 as well as the shortcourse race in just over a month. He’s probably the only guy who can do this and it’ll be fascinating to see how well he goes there. But he’s actually not the only guy from this race doing that race as well. The likes of Jonah Shamberg, Pierre Laor also towing the line. So it’s amazing to see how well these guys can traverse right now between shortc course and middle distance racing. Leo Brerier on that one who we’ve seen racing T 100, Max Stapley and it seems like this is something athletes can do these days. Editing Travis here jumping in again real quick to say a massive thank you to all of you who listened to my call out in the last week’s highlights of St. George. So many of you subscribed. I’ve never had so many subscribers in one video I think before. Means more than you think. I’m editing here at 8:30 at night and I’m still so motivated to do it and get this video out to you today. And it’s because of the support like this that really helps me. If you would like to jump in and subscribe as well or become a member for as little as a dollar a month, it seriously helps me do this going forward and continue working on other projects like fantasy and bringing that back to the sport. So, thank you so much again and let’s get started with the women’s race. And we had Marta Sanchez leading the lineup here. Somebody who could take the top spot of the Pro Series with a good result as well as Lisa Perter coming off her incredible Iron Man Texas T100 Singapore race. She’s in such form. But the big question was could she handle it as well as Christian? Would that Iron Man still be in her legs? We also had Lizzie Rainer who’s also in some good form after a third place at 70.3 Valencia. We also had Lena Meisner, a young girl, shortc course athlete, jumping up successfully to the middle distance as of late. Rapid swimmer and she would really push the pace on the swim here, although not able to get away like she was in Valencia where she had such a fast swim there. It ended up being eventually six women out the water together led by Lena and for the most part that group would stick together for the remainder of the bike. Lisa Perter, Marta Sanchez, Lena Meisner, Lizzie Rainer rode the entire ride together and they seem to work really well. They seem to be communicating and taking turns at the front of the race. However, despite that, they could not stop Marshall and Pierre from coming after them and eventually catching up to them and overtaking them. She’s actually from Reunion Island out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, but she spent a lot of her life around this area. So, it definitely was a hometown race for her. Knows these roads super well. And we saw what she did in Nice. So, it was no surprise to see her doing super well, riding incredibly strong on her new canyon. Last year, she was on a Clla and it looks like she’s really dialed in her position as well as a new helmet. So yeah, she ended up putting three minutes into all of those girls despite the fact that they rode a pack. And even when she caught up to them, they weren’t able to stick on her wheel and stay with her. Just too strong on the climbs and descents like we saw in Nice. Other good riders in the field included Sarah Spanks and Nikki Bartlett. Nikki Bartlett coming out of the water a few minutes back which really ended up costing her a chance at fighting for the podium here. Although she did have the fastest run of the day in the end, which landed her in fifth place. But a really interesting part as well on the bike for the women was this interaction between Sarah Spanx and what ended up being a new pro who admitted to making this mistake of slotting in and if you haven’t seen this rule before, it is when you overtake an athlete, there’s another athlete in front of them within 12 m and you slot in between those athletes. So it looked like what happened was Sarah Spanx was passed. She was dropping back from the athlete in front of her and then this athlete overtakes her and jumps in between them which you’re not allowed to do. You have to pass all the athletes if they’re within 12 m of each other. So yeah, Sarah Spanks got a little bit upset, let her know about it and made sure she got out of there and made the next pass right away. But it was interesting to see a contrast of that with Casper Stors as he pulled in ahead of Christian Blumenfelt making Christian slow up quite a bit. But he was able to do that because he was further than 12 m back from Jonas Shamberg. So he was able to slot in there totally legally. But definitely a rule that can cause some serious arguments and it makes the racing quite tough, especially when there’s two athletes overtaking each other. Situations like that can make it pretty confusing. But Margeline Pierre came off the bike, like I said, outr ridid the other athletes by three minutes, breaking the bike course record, having a quick transition then as well to give herself even more breathing room on the run. She looked at her best with putting her hair down as she loves to and ended up running a 1851 split. So, someone who’s done dealt with a lot of injuries in the last couple of years. Great to see her back running super well ahead of her big test coming up at Iron Man Hamburg. If you haven’t seen the start list for that one, it’s going to be fantastic. She’ll be taking on Cat Matthews and Laura Phillip once more like a niece. But yeah, with that gap she had coming off the bike and the pace that she set on the run, it didn’t leave much hope for those behind her finish line like it’s so beautiful. So, I’m super happy to have a nice picture. But Lizzie Rainer was having the race of her life. Her best performance, she said, ended up running sub 120 herself, which was just enough to edge out Lena Mesner by just under a minute, who was really suffering. She said she died a thousand deaths out there, but managed to hang on just to Mara Sanchez, who had a 121 run, which was enough to take her to the top of the Pro Series standings. Impressive start to the year from her so far with Iron Man, South Africa, Singapore, and now this one. But Marza looked fairly fresh in comparison to Lena at the finish line. And you just have to wonder, man, if she looked like Lena at the finish line, would she have been able to catch up that extra 45 seconds that she had on her and make the podium. But that’s is what it means for the Pro Series standings for the men and the women. Marta Sanchez going to the top like I said for the women and then Christian Blumenfeld taking the top spot for the men’s race. Leon Shiovelier ended up running pretty well here but he still finished 6 minutes back of Christian Gustaf Eden though finishing even further back I believe in 23rd position at this race. Way further back than Leon only getting 1,900 points here. So not a great result at Texas. Not a great result here either. His swim really did cost him, but he won’t be racing the short course race in Alggeros because he’ll have some time to make up and prepare for the Iron Man Frankfurt race they’ve got on their calendar next. But next up in the Pro Series is the women’s only race at Iron Man Hamburg. You cannot miss that one. It is going to be insane on June 1st. Then we’ve got 70.3 Eagle Man, another North American race which should feature a lot of the big names. So dude, stay tuned for those. I’ve got my wedding coming up next month, so I can’t promise I’ll get to every race, but I’ll do my best. But we’ve definitely got a news video coming out this week, so do jump in for that one. Thanks again, guys. We’ll see you in the next one. Have a good one. Bye.