Posted: July 3, 2005

Triathlon:Poker game pays for McCormack in Roth

Granger steps up to the top of the podium in Roth

ROTH, Germany—Before thousands of cheering fans, Aussie Chris McCormack not only successfully defended his title at the 21st Quelle Challenge Roth on Sunday but for the second year in a row dipped under the coveted eight-hour barrier, coming into the finish in an incredible 7:58:45. He was more than nine minutes clear of German Alex Taubert in second over the storied course, home to the world's fastest long-course time and more than 100,000 triathlon-mad spectators.

After the race, McCormack admitted that his pre-race talk of racing tactically was actually a race tactic in itself—one aimed at luring his competitors into thinking he'd be holding back from his usual strategy of racing hard from the gun.

As it turned out, it was a classic poker bluff.

"I wanted everyone to think I would sit back," he said. "I wanted to ride in around the 4:20 mark and just hang in on the run. I wanted them to think, 'What's he doing, I thought it was going to be tactical.'"

In the end, he'd log a 4:23 bike ride and a 2:45 run on the back of a 47-minute swim in what was a dramatic, dominating performance for his third finish in Roth. The win puts his record here at 2-1; in his debut in 2003 he finished three seconds behind five-time winner Lothar Leder in a dramatic sprint at the finish.

"I wanted them to relax, but it was bang, straight from the gun," McCormack said. "I wanted to put them on the back foot from the beginning and just hang on."

McCormack said he hadn't logged big miles leading up to the race, instead training with lots of technique and core work and limiting the speed sessions as well. He came into the race carrying some three kilos more than last year, when he believed his light weight hampered his recovery from the race and his preparations for late-season racing. He admitted he really didn't know how he'd go.

"I'm really happy with the way the day panned out," a clearly elated McCormack said.

From the start, McCormack forged an alliance with the young Kiwi Kieran Doe, who's fast gaining a reputation for his hard-charging swim and bike. Doe, 24, was first out of the water in 47:03 some 30 seconds ahead of McCormack. They exited with a group that also included Frenchman Cyrille Neveu, with the German trio of Leder, Taubert and Timo Bracht (third in Roth last year) another minute or more back.

But early into the bike, Doe and McCormack charged ahead, giving it full gas and widening the gap to the chasers. By the 37k check the margin had ballooned to nearly three minutes.

McCormack said he aimed to set a hard tempo on the first of the two laps of the bike, and estimates they went through the first 40k well under an hour. "We rode it like an Olympic race," he said.

It was a gap that Leder, Bracht and Taubert could not get across, and by 70k it had grown to 3:14, and at the end of the ride the Kiwi and the Aussie hit T2 with more than five minutes in hand over Bracht, who was the first of the chasers onto the canal for the run, with Leder 5:25 back and Taubert at 5:49 down. Known for his tenacious running, Taubert moved himself into second by 10k and had started to put time into McCormack while Leder and Bracht continued to fight it out a bit further back. At the end, Leder would settle for fourth with German age-grouper Michael Göhner surprising many with his fifth-place finish.

At the end of the day, McCormack gave all sorts of credit to the plucky Doe, who employed a similar tactic at Ironman New Zealand in March, where he came off the bike in the lead with eventual five-time champ Cameron Brown but faded to sixth on the run.

"He's a young warrior," McCormack said. "He just lays it on the line and I just respect that a lot."

Taubert, kept from a start in Roth in '04 after a bad bike crash, said he was pleased with the day because it proved he could race well in Germany and on a course that requires strong cycling. His performance also won him the title of German long-course champion and clearly brought him a long-held goal.

"My aim was to have a good race in Germany, which was something I hadn't had so far," the soft-spoken veteran said after the race. "The fourth place in Hawaii showed I could be strong on fast bike courses, but that was something I wasn't able to prove in the past here in Roth."

Taubert, 36, has been dogged by injuries in his career but said the changes in training they've brought about have, in the end, made him into a stronger athlete. In fact, coming into the race he'd been suffering from another nagging injury and was thinking his race might be finished by T2. But in a day of upside-down tactics and expectations, again the opposite proved true and he ran a classy 2:49.

"It turned out I was able to have a good run as well," he said. "In spite of age and injuries, I want to show I can still race well."

For Bracht, his second consecutive third-place finish also brought him a measure of satisfaction: "You have to be content if you're third in Roth," he said. "Winning here is a kind of masterpiece, and I want to congratulate Chris."

The 29-year-old added an eighth place at Ironman Hawaii to his resume last year, to accompany wins at Ironman France and Ironman Florida in 2003. Here he clocked 2:56 for the marathon to hit the finish in 8:14:26, but said he was a little disappointed in his run—but that the day was his best ever in Roth in terms of emotions: "I had support from the spectators and that was really great," he said.

And what of Leder? At the finish, he said he'd simply had a very hard day.

THE FIREFIGHTERS RACE: Roth's own Michael Hofmann nabbed the second-ever world long-course title for firefighters with his 8:28:43 finish, which was good enough for 11th place overall. Defending champion Margus Tamm was another 20 minutes back in 8:51—and in one of the many classic moments at the finish, hoisted a jubilant Hofmann in his arms to congratulate him.

NEW RECORD FOR CHALLENGED ATHLETES: Earlier in the week, McCormack had said he considered it a career goal to break the world record, 7:50:27, set by Belgium’s Luc van Lierde in Roth in 1997. The Aussie didn’t do that today, but one man who did break a world record was challenged athlete Rivaldo Martins.

The Brazilian amputee, who had competed in his home-country Ironman on May 30 of this year, came across the finish line in Roth in 9:57:48, becoming the first challenged athlete ever to break 10 hours and smashing the record of 10:10 he set here in 2001.

Martins was elated, telling the crowd he was so happy to set the new mark here in Roth, where so many greats have posted incredible times.

WELCOME BACK, HERBERT: In emotional ceremonies at the finish line, race director Herbert Walchshöfer was introduced to the crowd by his son, Felix. Shortly after last year's race, the elder Walchshöfer fell ill and required a lung transplant, but he was at the finish line tonight, surrounded by the race’s top pros, to thank his family, the race staff, athletes, volunteers and longtime friend and former race director Detlef Kühnel for stepping in to help keep the race on track during his illness. He invited all to return for the 2006 race, telling them that the allure of Roth will always be for athletes who hold fast to the heart of triathlon.

NOTES: Another local hero, Roth's Bernd Eichhorn, set a new hometown record with his seventh-place finish. His 8:24:13 broke a 13-year-old record for Roth residents of 8:32. Hofmann's performance also brought him in under the old record ... The day's fastest finish went to Aussie stalwart Jason Shortis, who had to serve an eight-minute penalty in T2 and entered the run more than 20 minutes down on the leaders. But his smashing 2:44 run, the day's fastest, hauled him all the way up to eighth place. "I just never quit," the veteran of Aussie Rules football said later. "I never give up."

RESULTS

Quelle Challenge Roth - Sunday, July 3, 2005; Roth, Germany (3.8k/180k/42.2k)

MEN
1) Chris McCormack (AUS) 7:58:45 (47:33/4:23:07/2:45:33)
2) Alexander Taubert (GER) 8:08:17 (48:28/4:27:16/2:49:16)
3) Timo Bracht (GER) 8:14:26 (49:17/4:26:50/2:56:13) 
4) Lothar Leder (GER) 8:17:41 (48:33/4:27:36/2:59:04)
5) Michael Göhner (GER) 8:21:34 (53:18/4:30:51/2:54:40)
6) Clas Björling (SWE) 8:21:55 (55:18/4:34:19/2:49:14)
7) Bernd Eichhorn (GER) 8:24:13 (50:32/4:34:13/2:57:01)
8) Jason Shortis (AUS) 8:27:25 (54:07/4:36:52/2:44:52)
9) Christophe Bastie (FRA) 8:28:00 (52:16/4:32:00/3:00:36)
10) Justin Granger (AUS) 8:28:19 (49:22/4:34:52/2:53:14)

Granger steps up to the top of the podium in Roth

ROTH, Germany—Aussie Belinda Granger made it an all-Aussie sweep at the Quelle Challenge Roth on Sunday, joining countryman Chris McCormack on the top step of the podium at the storied 21-year-old race.

Granger, who races under the banner of Germany’s top mail-order retailer Quelle AG just like McCormack, bested all comers with a blistering bike ride and held fast on the run to fend off a late charge from quick-closing German Nicole Leder, who was seeking a hat trick of three wins in a row here.

Last year in her Roth debut, Granger had come off the bike with a handy lead but succumbed to Leder’s blistering 2:52 marathon in the last 2k of the run—but that scenario was not to be repeated today.

It was Granger's day from early on the bike ride. Predictably, Ute Mückel, who won here nine years ago and is one of the best swimmers in the sport, had a very fast swim, measuring the professional men and exiting the water in 47:27 in what was her 13th start here. The German stalwart was fourth overall out of the water but had such a speedy transition that she was the very first athlete out of transition and onto the roads, to the delight of the spectators.

Granger and defending champ Nicole Leder, from Darmstadt, marked each other in the water and entered T1 within four seconds of each other but conceding nearly seven minutes to Mückel.

Once on two wheels, though, it was all Granger all the time. The only woman to break five hours on the bike, she’d powered her way up to the head of affairs by 50k into the ride to again guarantee her spot as the first woman up the Solarer Berg and then on through the throngs of fans along the course. She kept pressing her advantage and entered T2 with a lead approaching 30 minutes on the Leder and 11 minutes on Mückel.

But the gregarious Australian, who has spent the last three weeks training on the course with husband Justin, said she didn’t actually believe she’d had it won until about 300 meters from the finish as she knew Leder was coming. In fact, Leder had gobbled back 19 minutes of Granger’s advantage but that wasn’t enough and left Granger the clear winner in 9:14:06, more than 11 minutes clear of Leder.

”I really was scared right to the end,” Granger said.

“I can't believe it,” she said at the post-race press conference. “To think I used to watch this race years ago when I was doing short course; I used to always look at the magazines because it has just such a fascination around the world. To think that 12 years later I’ve won it, it's pretty unbelievable—but a good unbelievable.”

Granger credited a lot of her success to being able to train on the course.

“[It] made a huge difference because I felt so at home on the bike ride,” she said. “I knew all the corners where I did need to brake, and that saved energy.” She also said she’s become comfortable living in a different country and has grown to love the German way of life.

Leder conceded that she’d come into the race with less fitness than she’d have liked given some health problems in the month before the race. But, she added, even if she’d been super-fit she doubted she could have closed down Granger’s lead.

“This year it wasn't possible to follow her,” she said. “My [marathon] time of 3:02 proves I’m not able to run fantastic times every day of the year.” But the split was still the day’s fastest by a wide margin.

Mückel battled for third place with Roth's own Dagmar Matthes. The two eventually hooked up and ran near one another for a time while Leder was winding it up behind them. Mückel held off Matthes’ charge to complete her second straight third-place finish with Matthes fourth and young German Stefanie Glasenapp in fifth.

“”I’m super-satisfied to finish; it was a hard day for me today,” Mückel said, adding that she struggled to find a rhythm on the run.

“There were two times Dagmar was only 17 seconds behind me,” she added. “That doesn't give you any good feelings. But I had promised myself to give everything today, and that's what I did. For me, it's a success. The third place is a success here in Roth, and I’m delighted about it.”

Germany’s Heike Funk, fourth here last year and second the year earlier, had a hard day to finish tenth after battling her way all the way to second on the bike.

RESULTS

Quelle Challenge Roth - Sunday, July 3, 2005; Roth, Germany (3.8k/180k/42.2k)

WOMEN
1. Belinda Granger (AUS) 9:14:06 (54:07/4:55:31/3:21:06)
2. Nicole Leder (GER) 9:25:42 (54:11/5:26:22/3:02:17)
3. Ute Muckel (GER) 9:32:40 (47:27/5:13:54/3:28:41)
4. Dagmar Matthes (GER) 9:34:46 (54:09/5:11:18/3:25:57)
5. Stefanie Glasenapp (GER) 9:57:50 (57:09/5:21:34/3:35:16)
6. Susanne Zettl (GER) 10:02:31 (58:38/5:27:52/3:32:10)
7. Claudia Dorr (GER) 10:02:59 (1:03:35/5:10:50/3:44:28)
8. Heike Priess (GER) 10:06:29 (1:01:49/5:21:49/3:40:05)
9. Irma Pereiro Gonzalez (ESP) 10:06:33 (1:13:19/5:32:42/3:16:05)
10. Heike Funk (GER) 10:12:37 (53:24/5:22:18/3:53:45)

For a recap of the day, visit the live ticker at www.challenge-roth.de.

Quelle Challenge Roth’s sponsors include: Quelle AG, Deutsche Post AG, N-ERGIE, Newline, Nürnberger Nachrichten (Nürnberg Newspapers), Bayrische Versicherungskammer, Erdinger Alkoholfrei, Sparkasse Mittelfranken-Süd, Arndt, Mavic, INKO Energy, County of Roth, City of Roth, City of Hilpoltstein, Coca-Cola, Frankenbrunnen, Zeus Copy, Paladin, Hofmann, Jura Kaelte, Flor & Sohn, Spedition Heinloth, and BIESTMILCH.