Posted: May 22, 2004

Triathlon: Rovera and Berasategui Win Ironman Lanzarote

May 22, 2004: XIII Ironman Lanzarote Canarias Triathlon 2004

The French René Rovera and Spanish Virginia Berasategui, both rookies at Lanzarote, win the Ironman 2004.

The thirteenth edition of the Ironman Lanzarote Canarias Triatlón that took place on Saturday 22nd of May 2004 in Puerto del Carmen (Lanzarote), has been won by the French triathlete René Rovera and the Spanish, Bask, Virginia Berasategui Luna. The Frenchman, aged 36 and 7th at Hawaii in 1998, took 8 h 48 min 31 seconds and for the ninth time in the history of the race, finished in less than nine hours; Thomas Hellriegel set the record of the race in 1995 with 8 h 35 min 37 s. The Spanish, aged 28 and ITU World Champion (Ibiza 2003) took 9 h 41 min 51 s., only 16 minutes more than Paula Newby Fraser did back in 1995, when the best Ironwoman ever set the women’s race record at 9 h 24 min 39 s. Berasategui has been the second best in the 13 years history of the Ironman Lanzarote Canarias Triathlon.

German Steffen Liebetrau, aged 31, stayed at the top during the whole bike ride and half of the run, overtaken then by Rovera. Liebetrau finished in 8 h 51 min. 15 s., two minutes and six seconds ahead of Félix Martínez Rubio from Spain, who finished third for second year in a row.

The second woman to cross the finish was 34-year-old Gillian Bakker, repeating her second place from 2002. She needed 10:16:42, i.e. slightly more than 35 minutes behind Berasategui. The Spanish took the lead from the very beginning of the race, at the swim until the finish. Third was German Sonja Heubach, in 10:17:38, really close behind Bakker.

A total of 769 triathletes took part into this XIII edition of the Ironman Lanzarote Canarias Triathlon, celebrated one day before the Ironman of Japan and Florida. The weather was really good, almost without wind – only 15 km/h.

More information is available from the website at: www.ironmanlive.com.

Ironman Lanzarote - The toughest Ironman triathlon in the world!

From Press Release.