Laundry bounces back with runner-up finish in Campeche

Guelph, Ont.’s Jackson Laundry returned to racing after breaking his shoulder last September to take an impressive runner-up finish at Ironman 70.3 Campeche in Mexico.

After his horrific bike crash at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Nice last year, most in the sport were anticipating that Jackson Laundry was in for a long journey back to the top levels of long-distance racing. How wrong we were – he blasted back in style today with an impressive runner-up finish to Matt Hanson at what might be the last race we’ll see for the next few weeks.

Related: Inspiration in action – Jackson Laundry

Heading into T1, Laundry was part of a lead group of eight led by Brazil’s Frank Silvestrin Souza. Also in that group were fellow Canadians Cody Beals and Taylor Reid.

American Nicholas Chase powered to the front of the bike, with Laundry and Beals staying in touch through the first 15 km before Beals started to drop off from the leaders. Laundry stayed in the mix at the front through the halfway point of the bike before losing some ground and eventually hitting T2 in fourth behind Chase, Austria’s Michi Weiss and American Matt Hanson. Another Canadian, Jason Pohl, made up a minute’s gap off the bike to move himself into eighth, 8:30 behind the leaders, while Beals was over 10 minutes back in ninth, and Reid over 14-minutes behind in 11th.

Chase held onto his lead early in the run, but it was only a matter of time before super-runners Weiss and Hanson would move to the front – by 5.6 km into the half-marathon it was Hanson leading the way, with Weiss in second and Landry just 34 seconds behind the lead. By the mid-way point of the run, Laundry had moved ahead of Weiss and would hold that spot right to the finish line, finishing in 3:50:09, just over a minute behind Hanson (3:48:57). Weiss rounded out the podium with his 3:52:24 finishing time.

Pohl ran his way to fifth (3:58:32), with Beals taking 10th (4:10:48) and Reid finishing 11th (4:16:00).

Hering takes the women’s title

Canada’s Angela Naeth was third off the bike behind American’s Sarah True and Jackie Hering, but would drop out a few kilometres into the run. Hering would pass True by the 5 km point of the run and stayed out in front through the finish, dominating the day with a 4:16:48 finish. True held on for second (4:23:38) with Danielle Dingman rounding out the podium in 4:37:49.