The beautiful Canary Island of Lanzarote was the scenery for today’s Club La Santa Ironman 70.3. It became a tight battle for the podium, with the top 3 all within 2 minutes. The race was won by Eneko Llanos (ESP: 04:06:26), followed by Romain Guillaume of the Uplace-BMC Pro Triathlon Team, 16" further (FRA: 04:06:42) and Antony Costes finishing 3rd, 1'16"back (FRA: 04:07:44).
This brings the season total for the Uplace-BMC Pro Triathlon Team to 12 wins and 29 podium finishes.
Promising result
Romain Guillaume started off well in the lagoon of Club La Santa (non-swimsuit swim). He came out of the water as part of the leading group (1,9km: 23’40”).
As a former IM Lanzarote winner, Romain Guillaume played his cards on the bike. He took the lead early on and kept putting the chasers under pressure entering T2 with the fastest bike split (90km: 2:22:31). At the start of the run, Romain had a lead of 1’ on the duo Costes-Llanos. Halfway through the run the three athletes were racing shoulder-to-shoulder. Llanos and Costes managed to pull away from Romain Guillaume. Eneko Llanos was able to keep the gap, but in the last kilometers Romain Guillaume fought back and reclaimed 2nd place (21km: 1:17:14). It was a strong edition: the top 5 finished within 5 minutes. This is a promising result for Romain Guillaume who will be racing the Ironman World Championship in 3 weeks time.
Good test for Hawaii
The always-smiling Romain Guillaume clearly had a good reason to be happy today: "I had a strong swim today. The first half of the swim I stayed behind the leading group. The second half, I took the lead. On the bike I felt good, so I pushed a little harder without going really deep and I noticed that there was a little gap. I decided to continue on at my own rhythm. I noticed that the gap increased uphill but the chasers kept coming back in the downhill. I started the run with a 50” lead. Llanos and Costes started their run faster than I did and closed the gap at the end of the first of three laps. The second lap, we all ran together. In the third lap, Costes and Llanos took a little lead. I was able to fight back and take over the 2nd place from Costes in the last 3kms. Eneko Llanos was too strong during the run today. I am super happy because I ran 4 minutes faster than last year. It was a great test for Kona. I will train another week here at Sands Beach and then I travel straight to Hawaii. ”
Race results:
