Sanders knocks out tooth, but still captures 70.3 Mont-Tremblant title

Despite arriving at T1 to find his front tire flat and knocking out a front tooth from the sheer effort of catching up the field on the bike, Lionel Sanders took Ironman 70.3 Mont-Tremblant easily Sunday, finishing in blistering heat in a time of 3:48:02.

Mexican Tomas Hernandez, in his first race in Canada, crossed the line just over two minutes later, in 3:50:16. It was a race for the podium for Canadians Jackson Laundry and Cody Beals, with Laundry finishing 10 seconds ahead of his friend and rival, in a time of 3:50:46.

Taylor Reid and Brent McMahon were the other Canadians in the top 10, finishing 7th and 8th, respectively.

Duffy pulls out

Earlier today we learned that Bermudan Olympic champ Flora Duffy couldn’t start today’s race because her bike never arrived from Denver. That means Duffy likely won’t be able to qualify for The Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Utah in October – the qualifying window closes next weekend. Duffy was to have competed at Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga in May, but had to pull out when she got sick with COVID.

In the pro women’s race, Toronto’s Tamara Jewitt easily ran down the competition, finishing in 4:19:30, more than nine minutes ahead of her nearest rival, American Amber Ferreira, who had a time of 4:28:36. Ferreira’s 10-month-old daughter Charlie was waiting for her at the finish line. It was an emotional race for the American – her first back on the pro circuit since Charlie’s birth and her ninth time at Mont Tremblant. American Rachel Olson, first out of the water ahead of many of the male pros, in a time of 24:45, finished third among the pro women, in a time of 4:31:57.

There were three other Canadians among the top seven female pros: Pamela Bachelder St-Pierre, the first Quebec woman to cross the line in a time of 4:35:17, was less than a minute behind the fourth-place finisher, American Sonia Catano. Melanie McQuaid came in sixth, in 4:42:08, and Heather Low came 7th, in 4:48:23.