Long second after catching up
Triathlon world record pulverized at Challenge Roth
06/25/2023 2:56 p.m
Magnus Ditlev wins the triathlon classic in Roth in record time and, like a year ago, relegates two-time Hawaii world champion Patrick Lange to second place. In a remarkably fast race, the German puts on a furious race to catch up despite the extreme heat. The women break records too.
The two-time Ironman World Champion Patrick Lange missed his second success at the Challenge Roth despite a furious race to catch up. As in the previous year, the 2021 winner had to admit defeat in extremely hot temperatures in the Franconian triathlon Mecca. After swimming 3.8 km, cycling 180 km and running 42.195 km in 7:24:40 hours, the Dane broke Jan Frodeno’s world record from 2021 by a full eleven minutes.
After a strong run, Anne Haug was only beaten by the new record holder Daniela Ryf. Almost 13 minutes were missing for the title hat-trick in Roth despite the race to catch up. The Swiss, who pulled away on the bike course, undercut the twelve-year-old world record of Brit Chrissie Wellington by ten minutes in 8:08:21 hours, never before has a woman been faster in an official race. Laura Philipp finished third, 17 minutes behind.
Despite a record on the running course, Lange was a good five minutes behind the winner in front of around 300,000 spectators. Frodeno had not started in Roth in his last big career year, ex-world champion Sebastian Kienle was far behind in his final professional Ironman in Germany because of a flat tire on the bike course. He ended up in 14th place, almost 40 minutes behind.
Long furious catch-up race
Lange got out of the water in the leading group, but then quickly had to let Ditlev and Sam Laidlow go. The leading duo broke the course record on the bike with a time of under four hours, the German hopeful lost almost twelve minutes. In his favorite discipline, the marathon, he then started a furious race to catch up, collecting Laidlow 20 kilometers from the finish line. Only Ditlev bravely defended his lead.
Not only because of the tragic accident at the Ironman Hamburg three weeks ago, the safety precautions were tightened in Roth. 40 fewer escort motorcycles than in the previous year were allowed on the track, photographers were driven to the track from the outside. The motorcyclists wore black ribbons in honor of the biker who died in Hamburg a few weeks ago.
In the triathlon scene, Frodeno’s time has so far been considered the world record, even though the Norwegian Kristian Blummenfelt finished in Cozumel in 7:21:12 hours in 2021. There, however, the swimming times were far below the usual performance due to the strong current. In any case, overall best times are always difficult to classify because of the different route profiles worldwide.