Home > News

Sara Gross wins Ironman Brazil

2012_IM_arizona_gross_run4

After a warm up effort at Ironman Texas last weekend where she finished 18th in a stacked field, Victoria’s Sara Gross wins Ironman Brazil with an impressive sub-nine hour finishing time. Gross fought hard on the run to move up from third place. Running a 3:06 marathon, Gross had the fastest run of the day. She came out of the water with the lead swimmers and rode strong with Sophie Goos and Brazil’s Ariane Monticeli, but took the lead quickly on the run.

It was a tight podium with Goos finishing in 9:00:21 and Monticeli in 9:02:44. Before Ironman Texas, Gross confessed to TMC, “I’m secretly planning on racing Ironman Brazil the following week. I have done ‘the double’ once before in 2011 with Ironman Arizona and Ironman Cozumel one week apart. I was pretty happy with how things went then, but at the time I thought, ‘I can do better!’ That said, doing two Ironman races one week apart is a scary prospect and I am suitably uneasy about the whole process” said Gross. Clearly she didn’t need to worry.

On the men’s side, hometown favourite Igor Amorelli won in 8:07:54 followed by compatriot Santiago Alves Ascenco in 8:11:46 and Marcel Zamora of Spain in 8:16:16. Ironman Brazil takes place in Florianopolis, on the Island of Santa Catarina.