Posted: July 16, 2006

Triathlon: Kärnten IRONMAN Austria Report

Best Austrian Norbert Langbrandtner - Photo: Gernot Gleiss

The eighth Kärnten IRONMAN Austria brings a new world record swim time, two brothers amongst the top three and the entire IRONMAN Austria team within the top twenty finishers. In the women’s race Rebecca Preston finshed first after winning IRONMAN Switzerland only two weeks ago and Lori Bowden accomplished a successful come back.

Kärnten IRONMAN Austria 2006 proved to be an event for the history books. Not only the weather was perfect offering 28° C and blue skies, also the results were astonishing. In the early morning hours more than fifteen thousand spectators made a tremendous crowd for a record field of 2.193 athletes.

The first discipline showed a 41:26 swim split for Germany’s Christoph Wandratsch who lead the field out of the water and on to the bike course.

The new bike course was crowded by thousands of spectators as well in the known areas Klagenfurt, Maria Wörth and Velden, as in the new region Rosegg, Faaker See and St. Jakob.

Marino Vanhoenacker from Belgium took the lead early into the bike course and managed to open a gap of just less than six minutes off the bike and into the run. Van Hoenacker won the Kärnten IRONMAN Austria 2006 in 08:07:59, followed by Hektor Llanos (08:13:43) and his brother Eneko Llanos – both from spain- finishing the race after 08:15:11.

Last year second Norbert Langbrandtner placed fourth in 08:21:05, his IRONMAN Austria team mate Werner Leitner placed 5th in 08:26:24.

All three further IRONMAN Austria team athletes Gernot Seidl (08:30:12, 7), Andi Di Bernardo (08:39:37, 11)) and Alexander Frühwirth (08:43:20, 12) finished within the top twenty.

In the women’s race Rebecca Preston representing Australia sensationally won her second IRONMAN in a row within only two weeks after winning IRONMAN Switzerland. Her winning time was 09:12:09. Canada’s Lori Bowden placed second in 09:14:59 and Austria’s Veronika Hauke came in third after 09:28:56.

Again Kärnten IRONMAN Austria had more than 100.000 spectators and was televised for over 40 million viewers.

First entries for the 2007 event, held on July 8th, will be taken at the race venue on Monday, July 18th. The online-registration for next years event will be open after 24.00 on the same day.

Results: www.pentek-timing.at

Pictures: www.ironmanaustria.com

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