Nick Baldwin podiums at Ironman Wales |23 September 2016
Seychellois triathlete Nick Baldwin has achieved his season’s best result by finishing third at last weekend’s Ironman Wales in a time of 9 hours 7 minutes 22 seconds (9h07:22).
Ironman Wales is regarded as one of the most difficult triathlon events in the world, with athletes challenging just to reach the finish line over the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run.
Athletes had calm conditions for the 2.4 mile sea swim and Baldwin set a new personal best time for the swim leg of 47:10 (averaging 1:13/100m). He came out of the water in fifth place overall, less than 2 minutes behind the fastest swimmer.
On the bike course the athletes had over 2,000m of vertical climbing over the 112 miles, which is what makes Ironman Wales so difficult. In a year where Baldwin has improved his cycling considerably, he remained in fifth place for the first 80 miles of the cycle leg, before attacking towards the end and finishing with the second fastest bike time of 5h05:02. Philip Graves had the fastest ride of the race with a 5h01:43 split.
“The bike course in Wales is relentlessly challenging, so it’s really important that you conserve enough energy for the final half of the ride. I kept this in mind all day and made sure that I was prepared to push towards the end of the ride where I knew the others would start to tire. I executed my tactics almost perfectly on the ride and was really happy to start the run in a strong position."
Starting the 26.2 mile marathon in second place, Baldwin was less than 5 minutes behind the leader Graves and had a 3-minute advantage over third place Duelsen.
The run at Ironman Wales is also renowned for being one of the most challenging on the circuit, with athletes completing four laps around the town of Tenby. Germany’s Marc Duelsen was the fastest runner in the race, advancing from third place to take the win in 9h01:39. Great Britain’s Philip Graves was second in 9:02:56, while Baldwin had to fight off a late charge from Austria’s Daniel Niederreiter to hold on to third place with a 3:07:11 run split and an overall time of 9h07:22.
After the race Baldwin said: “To finish third in such a touch race is really rewarding and I’m so pleased that all the hard training this year paid off today. I kept myself close to the front of the race all day and always gave myself a chance of getting the win, but today I didn’t quite have the run legs to compete for the top step of the podium. I had to fight so hard towards the end of the race to hold on to third place, as the fourth placed athlete was running fast and closing down the gap. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that much pain at the end of a race, but the feeling of getting on the podium was worth it!”
This was Baldwin’s second Ironman podium as he also finished third at Ironman Australia in 2014. Baldwin’s other highlight result this season was finishing second at Ironman 70.3 Korea in August.
Meanwhile, the women’s race in Wales was won by American Darbi Roberts in 10h00:17, with France’s Jeanne Cologne in second (10h02:45) and Great Britain’s Nikki Bartlett in third (10h09:15).
Among the 1,700 competitors who started the race, were athletes of all ages between 19 – 70 who had entered for a whole variety of reasons, with many fundraising for hugely worthy causes including official charities Scope and Macmillan Cancer Research. While many of the seasoned triathletes were looking for an early qualification for the 2017 IRONMAN World Championship, Kona.
Contributed