- Every year on the 2nd Saturday of October,
the seaside town of Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii,
becomes transformed into the epicentre
for the world of triathlon. Why?
Well, because the Ironman World Championships course
starts, finishes, happens, in Kona,
and we're getting into the Kona spirit
by coming outside, and Mark's donned some flowers,
before packing our bags and heading out there ourselves.
- Yeah, as Heather says, Kona's become the pinnacle
of the Ironman racing calendar,
attracting the top professional and age group athletes,
who are all gonna be rocking up on that start line
in just a week's time.
So we thought we'd take the opportunity today
to run through a little preview of the course
and those athletes competing.
(logo jingling)
- [Heather] The swim start in Hawaii is one of the
most visually impressive sporting spectacles
in the world, let alone within triathlon itself,
and it's a non-wetsuit swim,
so it can actually give an advantage
to those stronger swimmers.
- [Mark] Now the bike course at Kona is often described
as being brutal, and whilst the 180k bike course
does have a climb up to Hawi around the turnaround point,
that only accounts for a little over 500 feet.
It is in fact the heat, the humidity, and the wind
that really make this course so tough.
- [Heather] But it's the run that tends to eat
the athletes up and spit them out again.
Burning too much too soon on this course
can be really costly, so the athletes come
out of T2, they run through town
and on to Ali'i Drive which will be packed
full of spectators cheering them on,
and this is where it's really easy
to get a little bit carried away.
They turn around and come back towards town
before then heading up the first hill, Palani Road,
and this is where it starts to get tough
because then they take a left
and head out onto the Queen K Highway,
where there is far less support
and it gets pretty tough for a mental battle
out amongst the lava fields before they take
a left and then enter the infamous
and unforgiving Natural Energy Lab.
And this year, the course has been changed slightly
so the runners will spend slightly longer
in the Energy Lab before turning around
heading back along the Queen K,
and then eventually dropping into town towards the finish.
- Well this year is going to be just as exciting as usual.
We have an absolutely stacked pro-field
that could go any number of different ways
depending on the race dynamics and the conditions.
But, on the women's side there does
seem to be one clear favourite.
What are your Kona predictions
for the men and women this year?
- Wow, 2018 Kona predictions would be,
I'm gonna go for Daniela for the women.
- Yeah, I think Daniela is still hard to beat,
it's gonna be hard to beat.
- Ryf's gonna win it.
- Hard for other women to beat Daniela Ryf.
- Although she will have some tough competition
from the likes of Lucy Charles,
but on the men's side it does seem a little less clear.
- For the men's side, yeah, the top favourites
are usually the same, so I guess that the top five
main contenders from last year
will be also the main people to watch for.
- Patrick can defend his title.
- Yeah, so I would say Sebastian, probably a German.
- I'm gonna go for Andi Dreitz.
- Well, Andi Dreitz is one of a handful of rookies to be
competing in Kona this year, and if you look at the records,
it does show that athletes need at least
a couple of attempts at Kona before they
really nail their performance.
In fact, there's only one man whose come as a rookie
and taken the title and that was Luc Van Lierde
back in 1998 when he set a course record in doing so
that then stood until 2011 when
Craig Alexander took the new record.
And if you look at the last few years,
winners in the men's field, they've all actually
been on the podium the previous year
so that just proves how tough it is for any
rookie, especially in the men's field.
But I've got my money on anyone; Javier Gomez
could be the man to do it.
- [Mark] Yeah, Javier Gomez has had a lot of
success over the shorter distance;
he has been five times ITU World Champion,
he's been an Olympic silver medalist,
and X-Terra World Champion.
He is one of the most decorated tri-athletes
but he has also started to dabble with 70.3's
and seems to be rather quite good at it because
he is two-time Iron Man 70.3 World Champion.
But more recently has also stepped up to
the full distance and really quite impressively,
he placed second at Iron Man Cannes
at a time of 7 hours and 56 minutes.
But this has got me wondering, is he
following in the same path as Jan Frodeno?
Can he perhaps match, or better, Jan Frodeno's debut at the
Iron Man World Championships which was a third place?
- And then on the women's side, we've got
Anne Haug, Heather Frederickson, and Sarah True;
all competing for their first time at Kona
and they can bring some considerable depth and power
to the field but it's Anne Haug who
could really cause some damage.
Earlier this year, we saw her win the Bronze medal
at the Iron Man 70.3 World Championship's
in South Africa and it's the incredible run that she had,
although saying that, we still saw her do
a lot of work on the bike as well.
So, if she is in contention after the bike in Kona,
with that run if she manages to pace it,
she certainly could be one to watch for the podium.
But aside from the rookies, we have a lot of
very experienced athletes coming back to Kona
and as we know, that experience really is valuable.
- [Mark] So Sebastian Kienle, well he actually
took the Kona title back in 2014 and he
literally won that race on the bike but since then,
his competitors seem to be a little bit more
clued up on his biking ability and
have never really allowed him to gain
that same advantage again on the bike.
So in response, he's really been working hard
on his running and it's started to pay off,
he's had a terrific year this year,
he actually validated his slot back at
Iron Man Cozumel earlier this year and that then allowed
him to do Challenge Roth and various other races.
But there really aren't that many athletes that
can bike with him or have that same biking ability
so if they do want to stop him from taking that
Kona title again, they're going to have to run
something like a sub-two-hour 45 marathon.
Well one person can really give him a
run for his money is Lionel Sanders.
He had a great race last year, a terrific swim for him,
and a great bike that brought him back up to
that lead pack and then he ended up leading
the race for the majority of that marathon,
only to be passed by Patrick Lange in the last few miles.
He, too, seems to be on great form this year,
he always seems to thrive off of
racing against his competitors.
He's had four 70.3 wins and just one
2nd place to Jan Frodeno.
Now for him to win this year, he'd have to have
another superb swim and perhaps join forces
with Sebastian Kienle and Cam Wurf on the bike
to bring it back up to that lead pack and then
run as well as he did last year.
And of course we have Patrick Lange, the current
Iron Man World Champion and 3rd place from 2016.
In fact, both years actually running through
the field posting, sub-two-hour 40 marathon splits.
In fact, he also holds the run course record and
the overall course record of 8 hours and 1 minute.
Now he isn't actually known for his biking ability
so if he can find that right balance
on the bike to limit his losses
whilst not sacrificing too much of his
run strength, then we could really find him
in contention coming off the bike into that run
and hopefully see that really exciting showdown
on the last few miles of the run as we saw last year.
One other person who could really contend
on the run is David McNamee.
He posted the fastest marathon split in 2015 in
his debut Iron Man World Champs and
then surprised us all with his
third place finish last year.
And of course, there are a number of other big
contenders on the start list.
Can Braden Currie latch onto Javier Gomez
and Josh Amberger to get an early advantage out of the swim?
Can Cam Wurf plough through the fields
again to lead off the bike?
Can Andrew Starykowicz join him in that?
And then of course, we have a number of other athletes
that could really influence the race
but really happy to see Tim Don and Matt Russell back
competing having suffered really horrific
bike accidents at the race last year.
- [Heather] Now for the women and I have
to start with Daniela Ryf.
She first won Kona back in 2015 and
she has done every year since,
if she wins this year in 2018,
that will be four years in a row;
she'll be the first woman to do so since Paula Newby-Fraser.
And she certainly in form this year,
we've seen her win the 70.3 World Championships,
she won Gardenia 70.3 with an almost course record
and then she had that incredible performance at the
European Championships in Frankfurt where she
won the women's field but she actually
finished 7th in a competitive men's pro-field as well.
However, one person that does jump out as
being able to stop Daniela is Lucy Charles.
Last year, in her first ever performance as a pro at Kona,
we saw her finish 2nd, she led out the swim,
she led for most of the bike and still
managed to post a personal record on the run.
And then, this year we've already seen her win the
African Championship down in South Africa
where she had the strongest swim and bike of the day
and then run another personal best
when it came to the marathon.
And of course, we saw the battle between Daniela
and Lucy Charles at the very exciting Iron Man 70.3
World Championships where again,
she led out from the swim, she managed to
bike with Daniela and then hung on for 2nd in the run.
There are so many other athletes that could make
their way onto the podium, in fact,
I can think of at least 10 who could be contenders
for podium slots but let's just focus on
last year's 3rd place finisher, Sarah Crowley.
Now in Kona last year, she biked with Daniela
and then ended up having that battle
on the marathon between her, and Heather Jackson
but earlier this season, we have seen her
with a few injuries but she seems
to be coming back into form.
She finished 3rd at Iron Man Frankfurt,
the European Championships and then just
three weeks later, she went on and won Iron Man Hamburg.
And as I've already mentioned, there are plenty
more in the mix, we could see a swim breakaway
from Lucy Charles and Lauren Brandon, like last year.
And then there's a lot of athletes that can
find themselves being able to run their way through
cause we have some ex-international runners
such as Emma Pallant making her debut.
Then we've got Susie Cheetham, another one to watch
and of course, we have three-time winner
Mirinda Carfrae returning to Kona.
Well it's looking like it's gonna be exciting
and pretty fast and you never know,
we might even see some new course records.
- Yeah, well all this action is going to be taking place
this Saturday, the 13th of October with
the men's starting first at 6:35AM, Hawaiian time.
Then the women, just five minutes later, at 6:40AM.
- Yeah well if you've watched this video and
you've noticed that we are wearing new caps,
we're getting ready to shelter from the sun in Hawaii
but great news, you can actually get your hands
on some so just click on the link for the
shop if you like the look of these caps.
- Yeah I'm afraid to say my Hawaiian necklace
is not available in the shop just yet.
- Oh damn.
- Maybe soon.
- (laughs)
- Yeah if you like this video, hit that thumbs up button.
If you'd like to see more videos from GTN,
just click on the globe and subscribe.
And if you'd like to see our Iron Man World Championship
course preview video that Heather filmed last year
out in Kona, you can see that by clicking just here.
- And if you wanna see the video that we've
made on the top pro triathletes
never to win Kona, that's just here.