Couple goals: partners Georgia Taylor-Brown and Vincent Luis take wins at 70.3 Bahrain

Ironman 70.3 Bahrain took place on Friday, and partners Vincent Luis of France and Georgia Taylor-Brown of the U.K. both ran away with the wins. Luis executed a fantastic race, winning it with a quick run to repeat as champion in Bahrain after his victory in 2022. Racing in her first 70.3, Taylor-Brown laid down the fastest run of the day to grab a fantastic win.

 

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A thrilling debut

Taylor-Brown is no stranger to winning. She has all three colours of Olympic medal (she won team gold and individual silver in Tokyo and a relay bronze in Paris), she is the 2020 World Triathlon champion, and she won the supertri title this year. It was only a matter of time before she decided to make the jump to 70.3 racing, and it should be no surprise that she is really good at this distance, too.

Germany’s Caroline Pohle led out of the water in the women’s race, posting a 26:23 split. Four other women were right behind her, including Taylor-Brown. It remained tight on the bike, becoming a three-woman race between Taylor-Brown, Pohle, and Tanja Neubert, another German.

Heading onto the run course, the win was still up for grabs, and it was a question of whether Taylor-Brown’s inexperience at the distance would show. Ultimately, her rookie status in 70.3 racing was a non-factor, as she laid down the fastest run of the day with a 1:14:28 split and flew to the win in 3:56:56. Neubert wasn’t too far behind, crossing the line in 3:57:18, and Pohle rounded out the podium in 4:01:49.

Another win for Luis

Luis has always been a top-tier swimmer, so it was no surprise when he emerged from the water first on Friday. His 22:36 split gave him a slight lead, but Germany’s Johannes Vogel and South African Henri Schoeman were only a few seconds back. This group of three leaders lost a lot of time on the bike, and soon enough, Luis’s fellow Frenchman, Mathis Margirier, and Wilhelm Hirsch, yet another German, had moved to the front of the race.

Leaving T2, Luis had a deficit of about a minute and a half to make up, but he powered forward, unfazed. Kilometre after kilometre, he reeled the leaders in, first passing Hirsch at the 14-kilometre mark and then catching Margirier with just two kilometres to go.

After that, Luis was in the clear, and he crossed the line to take his second win in Bahrain. He posted the fastest run split of the day with a 1:06:52 half-marathon and earned an overall time of 3:32:16. Margirier held on for second place, just 15 seconds back of Luis, and Hirsch finished in third.