Melissa Rollison wins as Australians Dominate Ironman 70.3 Vineman

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July 18, 2011

Incredibly just one week after winning Ironman 70.3 Muncie, Melissa Rollison has backed up by winning Ironman 70.3 Vineman, a race which included World Champion Mirinda Carfrae, who finished third.
 
Once again Rollison was off the pace in the swim but in this race and with this field she found herself exiting the water with Carfrae and only two minutes down on the lead pack that included Britain's Leanda Cave and Meredith Kessler from the US. Rollison put in the second fastest bike split of the day bettered only my Cave who started the run a full two minutes clear of Rollison and nine minutes up on Carfrae. "I struggled in the first transition trying to get my wetsuit off and also trying to pack it in to a bag as T2 was in another place and I didn't want anything left behind. This lost me a few minutes and probably provided photographers with some funny shots."
 
Rollison then set about riding down the girls ahead of her. "I caught two of the three girls that were ahead of me at 75km but Leanda was still ahead. When I went out on to the run two minutes down and just focused on my run pace and eventually passed Leanda." Rollison's run split was over 8 minutes faster than Caves and 8th fastest overall.
 
We all know Carfrae can run, and she has overcome many large deficits in her time, but as a Commonwealth Games steeplechase silver medalist Rollison has a run pedigree to eclipse the World Champion. Carfrae put in a great 1:19:17 to grab a podium slot, but this was not enough to get the fastest run split of the day which went to Rollison at 1:16:28. We can probably stop referring to Rollison as an ex steeplechaser and start recognising her for the great 70.3 athlete she is proving herself to be.

In the men's race Australian's Paul 'Barny' Matthews and 'Smokin' Joe Gambles rounded out a great day for the Australian's with two podium spots behind American Andy Potts. Potts set up his victory with his hall mark swim but was pushed all the way by Matthews who was able to take the lead on the bike but just could not hold Potts off on the run. Gambles made things hard for himself being off the lead group in the swim but came back with a strong bike leg and was able to edge out Kiwi O'Grady with a run split only 5 seconds slower than that of Potts.
 
Matthews raced for a solid 2nd at Boulder Peak over the Olympic distance the week before. In June Matthews went 1-1 winning Washinton DC 5150 ahead of Tim Reed and then backing up to win Kansas 70.3. At Vineman he managed to get out of the water just behind the lead four guys and after about 10kms he pulled away on the bike until he was caught by Chris Lieto at 65kms. Ouot of T2 Lieto had a 1:30 lead over Matthews which was whittled away by the 3mile mark. Paul knew that Andy Potts was on the charge and he eventually was passed at the 10mile mark. Potts got a break but that was erroded after Matthews got his second win and held on until about a mile to go when Potts kicked away for the win. Paul heads back to Santa Cruz where he has been training with Bevan Docherty to do a 6 week training block before racing Chicago, Des Moines and Las Vegas.
 
Joe Gambles was hoping to recapture his 2009 Vineman title but came away instead with a 3rd but in doing so raced faster than he did in 2009. Gambles was around 2:30 behind the leaders out of the water and after a fast bike he came in to T2 with Tim O'Donnell and Matty Reed. Out on to the run and Gambles was eventually able to shake them both as he set about trying to run down Lieto, Matthews and Potts. He managed to get past Lieto and even though he put in a very fast 1:13 run it wasn't quite enough to catch the front two.

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