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Triathlon

Records breaking wins at the IRONMAN South American Championship

Brent McMahon recorded the second fastest IRONMAN in history in winning the South American Championships. (Ironman.com)
Brent McMahon recorded the second fastest IRONMAN in history in winning the South American Championships. (Ironman.com)

Tough weather conditions did not deter any Ironman athletes as Brent McMahon recorded the second fastest IRONMAN in history while Liz Lyles cruised to the win and course record at the Ironman South American Championships in Brazil recently.

League of extra-ordinary McMahon

Right off the start, ten men exited the swim within a minute of each other, and led by Marcus Fernandes (BRA) including Brent McMahon (CAN), Paul Mathews (AUS), Igor Amorelli (BRA), Tim Don (GBR), Daniel Fontana (ITA), and Kevin Collington (USA).

Early into the bike the skies opened and began to pound competitors with rain making for treacherous and cold conditions through most of the bike. Amorelli, Wil Clarke (GBR), Collington, Fontana, Mathews, and McMahon took advantage of the circumstances and began to pull away from the field.

Brent McMahon opened up a huge gap on his rivals on the bike leg. (Twitter)
Brent McMahon opened up a huge gap on his rivals on the bike leg. (Twitter)

Nearing the completion of the first half of the bike, McMahon managed to create a minute and half gap on Don, Mathews, Amorelli, and Collington with the remainder of the field looking at a disadvantage of over eight minutes.

Unfortunately, Amorelli pulled himself from the race at 100 km’s as McMahon was putting down the hammer and pulling away from his challengers and dismounted the bike with leads of over 10 minutes.

Missed fastest Ironman time by 12 seconds

Heading onto the run, McMahon had a lead of over a 2 km before Don would hit the marathon course in pursuit of him. McMahon put his run game in overdrive in the final half of the run and started to bury his competition at an alarming rate.

On the strength of a 2:42:42 marathon, McMahon captured the 2016 IRONMAN South American Championship in a course record time of 7:46:10. McMahon established the second fastest time at an IRONMAN race—narrowly missing the record by 12 seconds.

Liz Lyles established a new course record en route to winning Ironman South American Champioships. (Ironman.com)
Liz Lyles established a new course record en route to winning Ironman South American Champioships. (Ironman.com)

Out of the swim, Lucie Zelenkova (CZE) established over two and and half minute leads on Laural Wassner (USA), Cait Snow (USA), Bruna Mahan (BRA), and Liz Lyles (USA).

Once on the water soaked roads, Lyles started methodically working her way on the bike towards Zelenkova and grabed the lead within the first 40 km’s of the race. Lyles started distancing herself from all the women and opened up the gap to 9 minutes on her rivals. Monticeli, the 2015 IRONMAN Brazil champion, suffered mechanical difficulties with her bike and would never recover the time that she lost rectifying the issues she had with her shifting.

Liz Lyles  pedalling hard towards smash the course record. (Twitter)
Liz Lyles pedalling hard towards smash the course record. (Twitter)

The race tightened up between Lyles and Huffe, but Lyles still maintained a healthy 7:36 lead on the German coming in to T2. Not even thinking of slowing down, Lyles clicked off the km’s at a much faster pace than any of her rivals and increased the gap further on all of her competition.

Lyles managed to record the fastest run on the day for the a spectacular win, while establishing a new course record of 8:54:10. Hufe and Frades rounded out the podium.

Ironman South American Championship Medal. (Twitter)
Ironman South American Championship Medal. (Twitter)

Top 5 Pro Men

1 McMahon, Brent CAN 0:47:47 4:11:54 2:42:52 7:46:10
2 Don, Tim GBR 0:47:49 4:22:01 2:50:27 8:04:15
3 Collington, Kevin USA 0:47:58 4:23:48 2:48:48 8:04:58
4 Matthews, Paul AUS 0:47:46 4:24:46 2:52:01 8:08:57
5 Silva Gomes, Pedro PRT 0:54:38 4:29:30 2:47:50 8:16:42

Top 5 Pro Women

1 Lyles, Elizabeth USA 0:56:52 4:48:37 3:03:48 8:54:10
2 Hufe, Mareen DEU 1:01:22 4:51:32 3:11:02 9:09:36
3 Frades, Gurutze ESP 1:01:26 5:00:36 3:08:54 9:15:52
4 Monticeli, Ariane BRA 1:01:25 5:09:24 3:03:55 9:21:18
5 Moller, Kristin DEU 1:01:22 5:18:13 3:04:41 9:29:36

Source: Ironman.com