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Macca and Riders Club at Wildflower Triathlon
posted by id* at 08:28 AM on May 07, 2008
McCormack remains undefeated, wins record fourth Wildflower Half Ironman
Lake San Antonio, CA
May 3, 2008
The reigning King of Kona is now the King of Wildflower as well! Modern Wildflower master, Chris McCormack extended his domination of the legendary toughest Half-Ironman on the planet Saturday.
The Australian, best known as 'Macca' broke a race long duel with Spain’s Eneko Llanos, surging away pell-mell down steep Beach Hill in the last mile of the run to take his record-tying fourth Wildflower long course triathlon Saturday by 19 seconds. McCormack’s win in 4:00:33 makes him four-for-four when racing Wildflower (2001, 2002, 2004, 2008) and gives him the most overall victories at the place they call 'The Woodstock of Triathlon'. Llanos and McCormack overcame a 6 minute advantage enjoyed by defending champion Bjorn Anderson of Sweden (2:16:03) and super biker Chris Lieto (2:15:41) after the hilly 56-mile bike. McCormack’s race-best 1:14:59 half marathon run and Llano’s second best 1:15:59 propelled the two duelists past Lieto at Mile 9 of the run and carried McCormack to his fourth Wildflower title and kept his perfect streak alive.
Lieto, who along with Anderson rolled his dice with a brilliant ride, ran out of gas on the run but held on stubbornly with a 1:23:11 run that gave him third overall in 4:03:34. Lieto, who had a breakthrough 6th place at Ironman Hawaii last October, finished a nerve-wracking 33 seconds ahead of 2000 Wildflower champion Chris Legh, who closed from 12th off the bike to 4th at the line with an impressive 1:15:38 run past the raucous and joyous Wildflower crowd.
“The last three miles, Eneko and I ran together and I just rolled the dice on that last downhill to the finish,” said McCormack. “I’m very proud I am unbeaten in my four tries at one of the greatest races in our sport. It’s always an honor to win here because of the competition – Chris Lieto rode like the wind today and we had to answer with a great run to beat him.”
Wildflower Triathlon, Half-Ironman
Swim 1.2 miles / Bike 56 miles / Run 13.1 miles
Top Ten Men:
1. Chris McCormack (AUS) 4:00:33
2. Eneko Llanos (ESP) 4:00:52
3. Chris Lieto (USA) 4:03:34
4. Chris Legh (AUS) 4:04:07
5. Fraser Cartmell (AUS) 4:04:51
6. Terenzo Bozzone (NZL) 4:05:39
7. Bjorn Andersson (SWE) 4:05:50
8. Leon Griffin (AUS) 4:07:04
9. Joe Gamble (USA) 4:07:29
10. Kirk Nelson (USA) 4:09:48
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTUO_0ynQng
Check out the race reports from some of our other Riders Club Members and Specialized sponsored athletes.
Here is Terenzo's report
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Comments (1)
11:16 AM on May 08, 2008 UTC Daniel Rucci wrote:
Dear Specialized,
I want to extend my deepest gratitude and thanks to the gentelmen and ladies working the Specialized booth at this year's Wildflower Triathlon.
I was utterly dismayed to find that FedEx had really done a number on my bike by the time it had arrived in LA. I opened the box at the Wildflower campsite to find that my 07 Allez top tube had been dented, the diagonal tube had tons of paint taken off and the aluminum eaten by my cassette ground into it like a meat grinder, my brake lever was bent, my wheels were way off true, and my rear deraileur was bent to heck and I basically was out of a ride unless K-Man bicycles could fix it by race time sunday morning.
I went over to the specialized booth, hoping for a miracle, and that's exactly what I found. There was a guy running the booth, I can't remember his name right now, but without even the slightest hesitation he offered to let me ride one of the Transition Pro bikes for my race; they had brought a medium to show for the expo. I hope you can forward this to him with my greatest sincere gratitude for the generosity and impeccable service. This is the kind of thing that makes customers for life.
K-Man was able to fix my bike in time for the race, and I'm in the throws of claiming my insurance with FedEx right now (no easy task, I'll tell you), but the offer from specialized, even though I only have an Allez, truly embodied the good natured spirit of this sport of triathlon and I really appreciated what they did for me.
Thank you. Keep up the good work, guys & gals.