Jesper Svensson of Sweden won Ironman Barcelona in 8hours 5min 56sec. Franz Loschke of Germany was second at 11 seconds. Miquel Blanchart Tinto of Spain was third at 8min 26sec.
Cool and blustery conditions greeted the eighty pro men lining up at Ironman Barcelona at 8am on 7 October 2018.
It was a wetsuit legal swim with a water temperature of 20 degrees Celcius.
Swim
Guillem Rojas took off like a rocket. Before long there were 30 seconds of clear water between him and the chase group.
Rojas maintained his tempo through the remainder of the swim, emerging onto the Barcelona beach sand after only 45min 34sec.
Following Rojas with a deficit of only 40 seconds was Swedish athlete Jesper Svensson.
Third place down to tenth was separated by a mere 10 seconds but emerged a full two minutes after Svensson.
Bike
Rojas held the gap through T1 to lead out on the bike leg.
Svensson knew that his best chance against the likes of Harry Wiltshire would be to hit out early on the bike. That is exactly what he did, catching and dropping Rojas on the first climb.
At 56km Svensson had extended his lead to just over four minutes from a pack of nine. Notably absent from that pack was Wiltshire. The pack did, however, include Franz Loschke at 4min 19sec.
At the 90km turn point, Svensson had conceded thirty seconds of his lead to the chase pack.
As an out and back course, Svensson would have seen the split to the chase pack. Consequently, he upped his wattage so that the chase pack was once again at 5min 54sec at 142km.
Jesper Svensson was first off the bike after 5hours 10minutes 36seconds of racing.
The chase pack had been reduced to only four riders who were over six minutes behind the Swede. Of those, Franz Loschke brought up the rear at 6min 29sec.
Run
At 8.3km Loschke had moved into a clear second place and reduced the deficit to 5min 22sec.
Svensson's lead was further cut to just 4min 7sec at the 15.5km mark. Already the Ironman athlete tracker system was indicating that a pass could happen inside the final five kilometers.
Those calculations were further amended when the German blasted through the half marathon mark only 2min 29sec off the pace.
At 28.6km the lead was only 23 seconds and Loschke could now see the Swede just ahead.
After leading the race for 214km, Svensson was finally passed by Loschke. The lead change was far from decisive as the Swede slotted in, pacing himself off the German's tempo.
With a mere 7km left to run Loschke had extended his lead to 1min 11sec over a very determined looking Svensson.
Miquel Blanchart Tinto of Spain was looking like he was on track to the fastest marathon of the day and had moved up to third at 35km. His deficit of 10min 18sec simply too much to challenge for the top two steps of the podium.
Inside the final 2km and Svensson fights pack to take the lead again. The Swede held it through to the finish to lift the tape only 11 seconds ahead of Loschke.
Results
1 Svensson 08:05:56
2 Loeschke +00:11
3 Blanchart Tinto +08:27
4 Mahr +11:04
5 Renc +13:06
6 Herbst +13:15
7 Scheltinga +14:02
8 Hanko +16:38
9 Kramer +16:46
10 Moreno Molins +17:18
10 Moreno Molins +17:18
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