IRONMAN Memphis Belle’s Ellie Salthouse (AUS) and Jason West (USA) take the wins
Ellie Salthouse (AUS) and Jason West (USA) take the wins in the inaugural IRONMAN 70.3 Memphis held in West Tennessee, USA on October 2rd.
Located in the southwest corner of Tennessee, the city of Memphis is nestled ‘where streets rock and the Mississippi River flows’ and where in the birthplace of rock ’n’ roll, the King lays to rest.
Beyond the city’s historic music scene, Shelby Farms Park was the race location. One of the largest urban parks in the United States, the 4,500-acre park race circuit consisted of a 1.2-mile swim, in the man-made waters of Hyde Lake, a 56-mile bike ride that traverses the rolling hills of Shelby and Fayette Counties and a 13.1-mile run course that weaves through the paved and packed gravel trails of the park amongst the buffalo herds that reside there.
Womens Category
In the women’s category it was the one non-American, Australia’s Ellie Salthouse, who led from start to finish in a time of 04:12:25 with her only real challengers being USA’s Jackie Hering who took second in 04:13:44 and Ali Brauer rounding of the podium spots in third place with a time of 04:26:25, although neither really looked like threatening the final race outcome.
Mens Catergory
It was the impressive run of Jason West (USA) that saw him cross the finishing line to overcome some stiff competition in a time of 03:45:05 with fellow countrymen Bradley Weiss a further minute and half behind and Mark Dubrick rounding of the top three in a time of 01:13:31.
It was a close race with Dubrick exiting the water ahead of 10 other athletes all who were with 10 seconds of each other. Onto the bike circuit and it was Ben Hoffman,who finished third in the full-distance Ironman Chattanooga last weekend, who led the way entering T2 with 8 other athletes less than a minute behind.
Onto the run and last week-ends Chattanooga race appeared to be taking its toil on Hoffman as he began to go backwards leaving West, Weiss and Dubrick as the front runners and that’s how it stayed with West picking up the pace after 5k to give him an insurmountable lead to the winning tape.
