A Hat Trick for Chrissie! 3x Ford Ironman World Champion

It's a hat trick for Great Britain's Chrissie Wellington! The superstar triathlete defended her title at yesterday's Ford Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, while also breaking the course record!

Wellington's overall time of 8:54:02 broke the course record set in 1992 by Ironman icon and eight-time Ironman World Champion Paula Newby-Fraser.

Wellington's never lost an Ironman event. At a shorter triathlon, Wellington took second to pro Julie Dibens at the 5430 longcourse triathlon in Boulder, Colo. At the women's press conference Wellington referred to that loss and quoted her former coach's advice, "Brett used to tell me that “some sessions are stones and some are stars, but they're all rocks that we build on.” I say, rock on Chrissie!
In Kailua-Kona Wellington held the lead by approximately 15 minutes throughout the 140.6-mile course, ranking 22nd among the entire field of male and female professional athletes.
The top five professional women’s results:
1. Chrissie Wellington, GBR 8:54:02
2. Mirinda Carfrae, AUS 9:13:59
3. Virginia Berasategui, SPA 9:15:28
4. Tereza Macel CZH 9:23:43
5. Samantha McGlone, CAN 9:30:28
With Ironman, "Anything is Possible" and everyone has a story. In addition to Wellington, two inspiring athletes included:
- Kyle Garlett, a 4-time cancer survivor who missed the swim cutoff by seconds. Race day marked the third anniversary of his heart transplant.
- Rudy Garcia-Tolson, the amazing double above-knee amputee, finished the swim in 1:14 and nearly made the bike cutoff. This 21-year-old athlete has no quads or hamstrings, for him riding a bike is like cycling on stilts!
For more inspiration catch the Emmy Award-winning Ford Ironman World Championship broadcast Dec. 19, 2009, from 4:30 – 6 p.m. EST.

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8 comments:

Unknown said...

exciting race!

Lora Abernathy said...

She's a completely amazing woman!

tri_al said...

yessss thanks for this post! even the british press aren't reporting on chrissie's win!!!!

KBWogs said...

Chrissie is such an inspiration as are all the athletes competing at Kona!

Velma said...

I cannot wait to see it on TV!

Sunny said...

So is it just me being picky, but I want video highlights on this year's great race and so far I can't find any good links, and ironmanlive.com has only press realeases...what the heck!?

Sara Cox Landolt said...

Thanks everyone for reading & commenting!

Sunny, try this:
RT @DaveErickson360 NEW VIDEOS POSTED from the 2009 Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. http://bit.ly/tyGHk -- N

http://www.daveerickson360.com/

Sara Cox Landolt said...
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