Haug Hammers
In her last 10 appearances at 70.3 or Ironman world championships, Daniela Ryf has had a grand total of one bad day – a fourth-place finish in 2016 at the 70.3 championship on the Sunshine Coast. The Swiss star has amassed five 70.3 world titles and four Kona championships in the last six years, so it was easy to call her the prohibitive favourite.
That didn’t mean the rest of the women were willing to hand her the race, though. Great Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay had finished second to Ryf the last few years, and right from the firing of the canon off the Kailua-Kona pier seemed determined to push Ryf to her limits. With American Lauren Brandon on her feet, Charles-Barclay exited the water in 49:02, five minutes up on the chase pack of eight that included Ryf, Australian Sarah Crowley and Germany’s Anne Haug, and then blasted out on the bike, determined to press the pace.
It wasn’t long into the ride when we started to realize that something wasn’t right with Ryf. She didn’t look comfortable riding with the chase group, and never made one of her signature drives to the front of the race that sets her apart from the rest of the women. We would find out later that Ryf was suffering from a bug (see sidebar), but the rest of the women in the competitive field weren’t waiting around for the four-time champ to feel better. Charles-Barclay steadily gained time on the chase group that included Germany’s
Daniela Bleymehl and Laura Philipp, Haug, along with Aussies Crowley and Carrie Lester. That group would enter T2 over eight minutes behind Charles-Barclay.
Charles-Barclay had spent much of the year working on her running, which she showcased through impressive wins at the Ironman African Championship in April and Challenge Roth in July. Haug, on the other hand, had done almost no running for much of 2019. After her third-place finish last year, she had tried some new shoes as she explored a potential new sponsor. She ignored some niggling aches and pains at her early season training camps, only to find that she’d torn her plantar fascia after Ironman 70.3 Abu Dhabi. She recovered from that injury, only to get a stress fracture.
All of which meant she found herself in need of an Ironman finish just to get back to Kona this year. Haug rolled into Ironman Copenhagen, the last qualifying race of the year, needing just a finish to get her spot. She’d only been running for four weeks heading into Copenhagen, so went into the race feeling like she might have to walk parts of the run.
There was no walking. She ran a 2:57 marathon and set a new course record of 8:31:32. That was the longest she ran heading into Kona – between Copenhagen and the world championship Haug managed one 22 km run.
With all that in mind, an eightminute lead seemed like it might be enough for Charles-Barclay to finally capture the title here in Kona. Then Haug started to run.
Bringing back memories of Mirinda Carfrae, Haug looked like she was running a 10 km rather than a marathon as she flew along the course. Seven miles into the run the gap was down to five minutes. At 12 miles it was under two minutes. At 15 miles it was just 17 seconds. Haug made the pass and pulled clear of Charles-Barclay, who found herself being relegated to third a short time later when Crowley went by.
As Haug hammered through the rest of the marathon, Crowley and Charles-Barclay pushed themselves to their limits. Crowley started to cramp and CharlesBarclay retook the runner-up spot, hanging on in the end to take her third straight second step on the podium. Crowley would take third, as she did two years ago, with Kona rookie Laura Philipp from Germany finishing fourth and American Heather Jackson taking fifth.
Haug becomes the first German woman to win in Kona, an auspicious feat in a country that’s crazy about its Ironman racing.
“Your life is going to change when you get home,” Greg Welch said to Haug at the post-race press conference.
“I hope it won’t change too much, because I like my life now,” she laughed.
It might have been a long year dealing with injury, but for Anne Haug, life is pretty good right now.