Posted: May 5, 2004

Triathlon: St. Croix Half-Ironman Triathlon Report

Sunday, May 2nd 2004

The 14th annual St. Croix Triathlon took place on a hot, windy, humid day on the island of St. Croix. Past winners for this event include triathlon legends Mark Allen, Erin Baker, Mike Pigg, Karen Smyers, Greg Welch and Michellie Jones. The race has had three distances in the 14 year history, but all of the events have included “The Beast”, the big climb on the bike ride!

This year’s elite field included some of the top Ironman triathletes in the world - On the men’s side Cameron Brown, Craig Alexander and Christian Bustos and on the women’s side Heather Fuhr, Nina Kraft and Ute Mueckel. Over 700 age-groupers also competed in the event with 30 Hawaiian Ironman spots on the line.

At 6:30 AM the men’s elite wave hit the water for the start of the 1.2 mile swim. The ocean conditions were mild with a light chop as the men swam the rectangle course in the Christiansted harbor. Three men pulled away from the group and came in under 27 minutes – Stephan Sheldrake or New Zealand, Ritchie Cunningham of Australia and Faris Al Sutan from Germany. Sheldrake took the $500 swim preme in 26:09.

Two minutes after the men, at 6:32 AM the women entered the water with two swimmers leading the pack. Melanie Mitchell of Australia and Kraft both finished under 27 minutes with Mitchell taking the $500 preme in 26:43.

The 56 miles bike ride in St. Criox is on the toughest rides in the sport of triathlon as athlete’s battle wind, humidity and “the Beast” – the climb up a mountain just the 20 mile mark. This year’s race was won of the bike by both the male and female champions!

Al Sutan took off on the bike and did not look back as he pulled away from everyone with a 2:21:47 bike split – the next fastest bike of the day was a 2:25:29 by Cunningham. Only four elite men rode under 2:30:00 for the bike. Kraft dominated on the women’s bike ride as she rode 2:39:04 – over six minutes faster then Liz Blatchford’s 2:45:21.

On the 13.1 mile run, the second place finishers hoped to have enough road to catch the leaders. Craig Alexander, the defending champion, ran the men’s fastest split – 1:17:55 and was able to run into second place but ended up finishing over 5 minutes behind Al Sutan. Al Sutan winning time was 4:08:40, Alexander finished in 4:14:00 and Cunningham finished third in 4:14:44.

Liz Blatchford, a great runner from Australia, ran 1:26:00, but still could not catch Kraft who won in a time of 4:37:01 setting a course record. Blatchford finished second in 4:38:54 and Heather Fuhr finished third in 4:50:08 with a 1:27:57 run split.