- Well, 2017 has been an amazing year
in the triathlon world.
There's been some impressive performances,
and even some records broken.
So here are some of the records of 2017.
(funky music)
Okay, I'm going to go straight in on the Ironman record,
and we're talking IRONMAN branded,
rather than just iron-distance record.
And in case you missed it,
Tim Don absolutely crushed it at IRONMAN Brazil
earlier this year.
He did it in an incredible time
of seven hours and 40 minutes,
breaking Lionel Sanders' previous record
of seven hours and 44 minutes,
set only last year at IRONMAN Arizona.
Now, another little fact for you here,
this made Tim member number 44
to the Sub-8 hour club.
And we were really looking forward
to watching Tim at the IRONMAN World Championships
in Kona, considering the form he was in,
but sadly, he was knocked off his bike
just a few days before the race.
But we are pleased to say
that he is recovering well from the incident.
And hopefully we'll look forward
to seeing him back in 2018.
Whilst we're talking about the IRONMAN World Champs,
we certainly can't do a records video
without talking about Patrick Lange.
After breaking Mark Allen's 27 year old run course record,
at last year's IRONMAN World Champs,
he came back again this year,
and broke the overall course record.
He did it in an incredible time
of eight hours, one minute and 40 seconds,
breaking Craig Alexander's previous record
of eight hours and three minutes, set in 2011.
Well, another record was broken in the same race,
but this time it was on the bike by Cameron Wurf.
He was the first into T2
while shattering Normann Stadler's
four hour 18 bike course record, set in 2006.
Wurf beat it by almost six minutes,
but interestingly, he wasn't the only person
to go under the previous record.
Both Lionel Sanders and Sebastian Kienle
both beat Stadler's previous record.
But nobody could match ex-pro cyclist,
Cameron Wurf, on the day.
Flora Duffy, well what a year she has had.
By winning the WTS Grand Final in Rotterdam,
she became the lady with the most ever WTS wins in one year.
That came to a grand total of six in 2017,
beating Gwen Jorgensen's previous record of five.
Now, she did them
at Yokohama, Leeds, Hamburg, Edmonton,
Stockholm and Rotterdam.
And another record that Flora broke this year
was in Yokohama, where she had the biggest ever
winning margin in a WTS event.
She won by an amazing one minute and 51 seconds.
Now that's quite impressive, considering
just the level of competition you have in WTS events,
and actually just how short the events are too.
Over in New Zealand it was Dougal Allan
that won the iconic Challenge Wanaka
for a second year running.
And in doing so, he set a new bike course record
and an overall course record.
It's classed as one of the toughest
and most honest long distance triathlon's out there.
Yet, he still did a bike time of four hours and 27 minutes.
And an overall time of eight hours and 36 minutes,
beating the previous record set in 2010
by nearly nine minutes.
And in the same race, another record was broken,
but in the women's race, by Yvonne Van Vlerken.
She set a time of nine hours and 15 minutes,
but, she had to work for it,
because she had Laura Siddal chasing her hard,
finishing just 27 seconds behind.
Back in April at IRONMAN Texas,
arguably the sport's strongest cyclist, Andrew Starykowicz,
set the fastest ever Ironman bike time
of four hours, one minute and 14 seconds.
And for those triathlon geeks out there,
that translates to 27.9 miles per hour,
or 44.8 kilometres per hour.
And just to add to that,
Starykowicz was actually involved
in a horrific bike crash
that was potentially life-threatening,
just eight months prior to that race.
So he did all that,
of maybe six months or less of training.
Really impressive stuff.
In Ironman racing, a Sub-8 hour performance
has kind of become the holy grail for pro male triathletes.
And for the first time ever, this year,
five men went Sub-8 hours in one event, at IRONMAN Texas.
It was won by Matt Hanson,
with his first ever Sub-8 hours.
In second, it was Ronnie Schildknecht.
In third, it was Tyler Butterfield,
also in his first ever Sub-8 hours.
In fourth, it was Will Clark,
and in fifth, it was Kirill Kotsegarov,
also with his first ever Sub-8 hours.
So, up until we last checked at the end of November,
that is a total of 49 men to ever go under eight hours.
And, another little fact for you here, and another record,
in 2017, that is 19 men that have gone Sub-8 hours,
beating the previous record of 13 men, set in 2016.
So there we go, that is GTN's Records of 2017,
and let us know which one is your favourite
in the comments below, and if you like this video,
give it a thumbs up.
And to see more videos from GTN,
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And if you want to see some more facts
about Kona, you can see that by clicking
on the video down here.
And to see some tech from the ITU Grand Final in Rotterdam,
just click down here.