Trevor Wurtele wins Ironman Canada
Uli Bromme claims the women's title. Canada's Gillian Moody is third.
Trevor Wurtele’s primary focus for 2013 was to win the Ironman Canada title, today the Kelowna native fulfilled his dream with an impressive come from behind victory to claim his first career Ironman title.
Wurtele swam 54:27 to exit the water in eighth. He then rode 4:46:51 to close the gap on race leaders Americans Matt Lieto (11 seconds) and Matthew Russell (8 seconds).
Wurtele charged out of T2 first, but he and Matthew Russell battled until just before the 10 km mark of the run where Wurtele managed to create a gap and slowly built a lead. Wurtele finished with a 2:54:31 run to win the inaugural Ironman Canada Whistler title in his home province with a time of 8:39:33.
“I just put in the work all year, and managed to just hang tough here and it worked out,” said Wurtele.
Matthew Russell finished second in his title defence (8:45:15), and Great Britain’s Paul Amey finished third (8:53:27) just one week after an 11th place finish at Ironman Mont-Tremblant.
Sidney’s Andrew Russell placed fifth (8:58:23) in his Ironman debut.
Top 10 Men
| WURTELE, Trevor | CAN | 00:54:27 | 04:46:51 | 02:54:31 | 08:39:33 | 1 |
| RUSSELL, Matthew | USA | 00:58:13 | 04:42:53 | 03:00:12 | 08:45:15 | 2 |
| AMEY, Paul | USA | 00:51:07 | 04:55:51 | 03:02:19 | 08:53:27 | 3 |
| SCHIFFERLE, Mike | CHE | 01:00:12 | 04:54:41 | 02:52:44 | 08:53:58 | 4 |
| RUSSELL, Andrew | CAN | 00:49:22 | 04:56:42 | 03:08:08 | 08:58:23 | 5 |
| BERGER, Dominik | AUT | 00:49:05 | 04:57:53 | 03:09:15 | 09:00:24 | 6 |
| LIETO, Matt | USA | 00:51:30 | 04:48:56 | 03:18:52 | 09:04:21 | 7 |
| KILSHAW, Stephen | CAN | 00:54:48 | 05:01:36 | 03:10:46 | 09:11:15 | 8 |
| SHEEKS, Matthew | USA | 01:01:41 | 05:09:44 | 02:55:04 | 09:11:56 | 9 |
| NUFFORT, Matt | USA | 00:53:58 | 05:06:01 | 03:17:40 | 09:25:52 | 10 |
Germany’s Uli Bromme also claimed her first career Ironman title today.
Like Wurtele, she completed the swim in eighth (1:03:02), but she rode to the front of the race with a women’s best 5:13:51 split to take a 7:12 lead with her to the run. She also posted the top pro women’s marathon of 3:06:53 to take the dominant victory in 9:28:13.
North Vancouver’s Gillian Moody ran to a third place finish (9:49:09), and Vancouver’s Christine Fletcher took fourth (9:56:45).
Top 10 Women
| BROMME, Uli | USA | 01:03:02 | 05:13:51 | 03:06:53 | 09:28:13 | 1 |
| RIBES, Lisa | USA | 01:03:04 | 05:22:10 | 03:08:53 | 09:38:34 | 2 |
| MOODY, Gillian | CAN | 00:56:51 | 05:29:16 | 03:18:39 | 09:49:09 | 3 |
| FLETCHER, Christine | CAN | 00:57:58 | 05:25:48 | 03:26:56 | 09:56:45 | 4 |
| ANDERSON, Morgan | USA | 01:13:08 | 05:19:55 | 03:21:55 | 10:01:35 | 5 |
| TULLOCH, Karen | CAN | 01:05:10 | 05:39:12 | 03:10:15 | 10:01:57 | 6 |
| ANDERSON, Christine | USA | 00:55:13 | 05:29:06 | 03:33:28 | 10:01:59 | 7 |
| LANGENECKER, Stacey | USA | 01:10:40 | 05:22:00 | 03:25:25 | 10:08:39 | 8 |
| PRYSTAYKO, Olesya | UKR | 01:01:08 | 05:28:50 | 03:37:24 | 10:11:36 | 9 |
| ORLOVSKY, Cheryl | CAN | 01:05:23 | 05:36:00 | 03:25:31 | 10:13:48 | 10 |
