Patrick Lange smashed the Ironman World Championship course record in a time of 7hours 52min 39sec. Bart Aernouts was second, also going sub 8 hours. Third went to David McNamee in 8hrs 01min 09sec. All of the top three finishing faster than the previous course record.
I don't know about everyone else in the world attempting to follow the race via the FaceBook Live feed, but even with a fiber optic internet connection, it was immensely frustrating to follow the commentary. Five words of commentary followed by 20 or more seconds of buffering and a jump ahead meant not being able to follow the live commentary at all.
The athletes, however, faced a far greater challenge on the Big Island. A calm sea and overcast conditions with almost no wind meant swim and bike course records would be in jeopardy.
Swim
At 6:35am the Ironman canon signaled the start of the pro men's race. Immediately Josh Amberger surged to the front. He managed to string the field out but amazingly the entire men's field stayed together on his feet almost all the way to the turnaround.
When the split did come, it was only nine other athletes that managed to stay with Amberger.
Josh Amberger was still at the head of the lead pack out of the water, narrowly missing the swim course record again.
Bike
It didn't take long for super cyclists Cameron Wurf and Andrew Starykowicz to close the gap on Amberger.
At the start of the climb up to Hawi the trio had over three minutes advantage on the remaining athletes.
Cameron Wurf made his move at 87 miles and immediately opened up a gap at the front of the race.
Wurf was first off the bike in a new bike course record of 4hours 09min 36sec. Patrick Lange came off the bike in tenth alongside Tim O'Donnell at 6min 44sec down.
Run
Both Lange and O'Donnell put their heads down and got to work closing the gap. After just a couple of minutes, they linked up with Bart Aernouts.
Patrick Lange used the left turn onto the Queen K to put the hammer down and drop his companions.
Lange caught and passed Wurf just short of the 10-mile mark.
Coming out of the energy lab Lange had extended his lead 2min 09sec from Bart Aernouts and 5min 49sec from David McNamee. That was the order they held to the finish.
Top 10:
1. Patrick Lange 7:52:30
2. Bart Aernouts +4:02
3. David McNamee +8:30
4. Tim O'Donnell +10:38
5. Braden Currie +12:02
6. Matt Russell +12:06
7. Joe Skipper +13:15
8. Andy Potts +16:55
9. Cameron Wurf +17:53
10. Michael Weiss +18:25
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