Javier Gomez has definitely stomped his mark on the 2018 season starting with the IRONMAN 70.3 in Barcelona, Spain. The country’s home favourite set the fans roaring right from the 1.9km swim start, through to the 90km cycling route and all the way home on the 21km run in Calella.

Gomez stormed to the front in the water and kept on pushing throughout the whole race. Bart Aernouts and David McNamee started hammering as a two-athlete chase-group early on the demanding bike course. Although they came close on the final kilometers, they couldn’t catch up with the leader.

Gomez started onto the run with a gap of less than 40 seconds, but he really pushed then. The 35-year-old paced himself to a sub-1:10 split right from the beginning and missed this goal finally by only eight seconds.

McNamee nailed a solid run to finish in second while Aernouts had to suffer a bit after attacking hard on the tough bike leg to take third.

Defending women’s champion Emma Pallant showed it doesn’t matter how you start the race, but it matters how you finish it in the women’s race of the IRONMAN 70.3 Barcelona.

Pallant focused on the second half of the race despite starting the 90km bike leg with a two-minute deficit and downsized this gap to a minute on the first 20 kilometers. During the longest climb of the day, she took over control in a group of three including Denmark’s Camilla Pedersen and the British Pro rookie Fenella Langridge.

Pedersen took the lead of one minute into Transition T2, but Pallant ran into the lead within only a few meters. After about half way through the 21km run, the 28-year-old worked hard to cross the finish line almost seven minutes ahead of fellow Brit Fenella Langridge and Austrian Eva Wutti whom completed the podium.

Source: Ironman.com