Ruth Astle (GB) crowned Ironman African champion
Ruth Astle of Great Britain outclassed the rest of the field in tough Bay conditions that saw the swim section of Ironman South Africa cut in half in the ‘Windy City’ of Port Elisabeth to be crowned Ironman African Champion in a time of 08:38:52
Ruth went into this race full of optimism looking for back-to-back wins having taken the Ironman Mallorca title a little over 5 weeks ago. Even with the upheaval created by the pandemic Ruth has not been deterred from fulfilling her ambition of being one of the best long-distance triathletes in the world.
And today victory puts the Brit firmly on the map as one of the top pro female athletes on the circuit since turning professional back in 2019 after taking the women’s overall age-group win at the Ironman World Championships.
The TriNation Podcast Team of Luke and Andrew were able to get to know who is behind the face of Ruth Astle when they had an in-depth discussion with her on her transition to pro racing – see below:
Ruth Astle talks openly about her transition to pro racing with the Trination Podcast Crew here
Ruth is setting up a reputation of being a bit of a ‘bike beast’ having set a new bike course record of 4:33:44 at 2020 Ironman Florida that had stood since 2013 and only 5 weeks ago achieved the fastest bike spilt of the day in her win at Ironman Mallorca. And Ruth did not disappoint today heading into T2 with a massive lead of 4:35 minutes over Imogen Simmonds (SUI) an IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship silver medallist and with a lead over 12 minutes from the rest of the field.
It was the Swiss athlete who exited the swim leg first some 3 minutes ahead of Astel on a swim course that had been modified to half distance of 1.9 km due to choppy water conditions. The time gap was not enough and Astle eat away at the time deficit to take command of the bike section at the 60k mark and continued to push, in her aerodynamic style, like a knife through butter in the windy conditions.
Onto the marathon run and Ruth was pacing herself perfectly to take the win. With a little over 12 miles remaining Ruth had increased her advantage to 5:33 over her main rivals.
Nonetheless, the race is not over until it’s over and whilst all leading athletes appeared to be suffering from fatigue under the searing South African heat one pocket dynamo in the shape of South African, Annah Watkinson was having the run of her life. Heading out of T2 some 14 minutes down on Astle she was running through the field like a gazelle. Her 02:59:26 marathon was enough for her to run through to take second place but there was not enough road to over-take Astle who crossed the winning tape still some two minutes ahead. Another South African Jade Nicole ran a spectacular marathon to take home third spot.
With a winning prize pot of $15,000 for this race the Brit’s late entry will have made it worthwhile in addition to moving her up the PTO rankings for the PTO ‘Race For The Rankings’ for what could be a significant pay-out from the $2,000,000 prize pot paid out across the top 100-ranked athletes, at the end of 2021 season.
