2024 Season kicks off with Ironman 70.3 Pucon and here’s what we noticed

The 2024 race season got underway with the first Ironman race of the year in Pucon, Chile. The race featured an age group field of about 1,200 athletes, some who were looking for qualifying slots for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Taupo (ironically likely the last race of the year – it’s taking place on December 14 and 15) and others in the hunt for one of the women’s slots for the Ironman World Championship in Nice in September. There was also a small pro field of 23 athletes vying for their share of the $25,000 prize purse and one of the four pro slots for Taupo (two men’s and two women’s) up for grabs.

As you can see from the photo above, the course is spectacular with lots of views of the surrounding volcanoes, and it’s also renowned for the huge crowds that line the course.

Here’s some of the things we notices from yesterday’s race:

As promised, Sam Long is in good shape and a good head space

 

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The American star foreshadowed his excellent race condition in a video he posted last week, and certainly lived up to all that with a big win. He might have been over three minutes down after the swim, but was only 15 seconds behind at the halfway point of the ride and was 4:31 ahead of the chasers by the end of the ride. He then outran the rest of the pro men to finish the day almost seven minutes ahead.

It’s a great start for Long, to be sure, but if he’s going to be focussed on Professional Triathlon Organisation (PTO) Tour events in 2024, that swim deficit is going to haunt him – he’s not going to make up that kind of time on the strong fields he’ll be facing.

Marta Sanchez dominates the women’s race

Heading into yesterday’s race the only time Barbara Riveros hadn’t won this race (when she started) was the year she came second. The Chilean favourite might have come out of the water just a couple of seconds behind Spain’s Marta Sanchez, but that’s about as close as she got to taking a seventh Ironman 70.3 Pucon title. Sanchez built on her lead out of the water and opened up a nine-minute lead on Riveros off the bike.

In the end Ecuador’s Elizabeth Bravo would run past Riveros to take second, but there was no touching Sanchez who ended up taking the win by almost seven minutes.

Triathlon Magazine columnist dominates the 65 to 69 category

Loreen Pindera, who writes our “Age Group Mind” column for the magazine, dominated her age group, winning the race by over an hour. Pindera didn’t take the slot to Nice, but did grab a chance to compete at the world’s in Taupo in December. In addition to the chance to compete in Taupo, Pindera won 2 kg of cured meats – we’ll assume she’ll have to eat all that before she returns home to Montreal!

Close racing for second

Chile’s own Martin Ulloa gamely held on to second place for much of the run, but was passed in the closing kilometres by Argentina’s Luciano Taccone. Canadian Matt Sharpe made up some time on the run, but would end up about a minute short of the men’s podium.

Things weren’t quite as close in the women’s race as Riveros was caught by Bravo somewhere around the 6 km mark of the run and would steadily pull clear to take second and relegate the four-time Olympian to the bottom of the podium.

You can find full results from the race here.