American Taylor Knibb dominated at IRONMAN 70.3 Boulder, despite only recently recovering from a bout of sickness, to win in her first middle distance race of the season.
Behind, Jeanni Metzler of South Africa gave Brit Holly Lawrence a scare in the final stages of the run, but Boulder based Lawrence prevailed, despite not tapering for the event.
Metzler, who returned to racing this year after a period away from the sport, celebrated her third consecutive podium following a great string of results that will surely see her move up the rankings.
Surgery and sickness can’t stop Knibb
Following a race where she dominated from gun to tape, Knibb revealed that the build up to Boulder had been less than ideal, with sickness in particular troubling her during race week.
“I got surgery on January 3rd, them my first race back was on May 13th. I had about 48 hours where I was like ‘wow I’m back’ after that, then I got home to Boulder and got pretty sick.
“I was sick for about a week and I am still coming off that, I wasn’t sure if I was going to race the other week just because I was thinking of my health.”
Fortunately, Knibb felt well enough to toe the start line, a decision she admitted might have been influenced by the fact it is her home race.
“A number of factors made me decide to race despite the sickness. It is such a great opportunity to compete and I promised myself in February that I would be racing Boulder no matter what.”
“Racing at altitude is no joke”
For second placed Lawrence, the race in Boulder wasn’t a big priority, but despite not tapering for the event, the Brit was happy with how things played out.
“Racing at altitude is no joke. I mean I live here now but I just got blown up in the swim. At 400m I was trying to keep up with Lauren [Brandon] and Taylor, but I just went totally lactic and then was regressing and think I did a few breastroke strokes to catch my breath.
“I just told myself to be patient. Teresa Adams went super hard off the bike, but then I saw her later coming into T2 and was just super proud of myself for fighting to stay in it even though I was having a tough day.”
Reiterating that Boulder was far from a prioritised race on the schedule, Lawrence said that she was proud of the way she raced and couldn’t have asked for more out of herself.
“I didn’t really rest up for this race. It was never on the cards to treat it as an “A” race, so I am just super proud of myself because you know, Taylor Knibb was the best in the world last year and I just couldn’t have asked for more.”
“I didn’t get off to the best start”
After finishing first at IRONMAN 70.3 St George and third at IRONMAN 70.3 Chattanooga, Metzler was a favourite for the top spots in Boulder, but had to work hard for her third consecutive podium.
“Racing at altitude is never easy and to be honest I didn’t get off to the best start, I was really feeling kind of flat. All you can do is try to manage your body as best as possible, so I just tried to keep my heart rate in check and manage my nutrition really well.”
Having made her way through the field on the run and just ran out of real estate in the hunt for Lawrence, the South African said that she was proud of the way she approached the run, as she avoided blowing up like she’d done in previous years.
“I was just kind of in my own head, because I wasn’t really at the front of the race and in the run I just kept really controlled, because in the past I have blown up really bad here so to just have executed a good run I am really proud of myself.”
