By Jay Prasuhn
April 15, 2007 -- Boulder’s Joanna Zeiger led out of the water and off the bike at the Ford Ironman Arizona, but the day came down to the run. And on tax day, she was forced to slowly pay back her effort, hoping the gap would be enough.
Behind her, a methodical Heather Gollnick nipped away at the lead. After 139 miles of hard racing from the front by Zeiger, the Floridian took control when it counted, moving into the lead with just over one mile left and took her fourth career Ironman victory, in 9:36:40, as Zeiger crossed second, 49 seconds later.
As for the men’s race, Rutger Beke’s agent, Chris McCrary, put it best:
“Rutger’s kind of the Phil Mickelson of Ironman racing—lots of top finishes, but he hasn’t gotten a big win yet.”
Well, the Belgian just earned his first proverbial green jacket, holding off a resurgent Tim DeBoom to take his first Ironman win on a day marked by its winds, in 8:21:14.
“I’m very, very, very happy,” a smiling Beke said after the race. “And to win it against a very good Tim DeBoom, a two-time world champion. And I came in first on the bike. I never would have dreamed to win like this.”
A total of 2,086 starters faced a day that seemed docile on it’s face, but after a couple of hours on the bike, it felt like Kona. Not for the expected heat (which was relatively tame), but an eastbound wind that often blasted the. Not only did athletes have to navigate one another on a tight bike course, but they also had to dodge the occasional passing tumbleweed along Beeline Highway. There also seemed to be a high number of flat tires, likely due to road grit from a powerful windstorm that battered Arizona on Thursday.
For the 29-year-old Beke, his first Ironman win was earned mostly due to a hard training regiment, and partly to a clever race tactic, courtesy of Thomas Hellriegel. Endeavoring to improve his bike for Hawaii, he took in three focused bike camps leading up to the race—two alone in Lanzarote, Spain, and one with the Belgian triathlon federation in South Africa. It would prove to be a fruitful trio of trips.
The swim in Tempe Town Lake saw Bryan Rhodes and James Bonney set the swim tempo as the pair exited the water one-two, with Germany’s Andreas Niedrig and Zeiger coming out 14 seconds later.
Early on the battle was between DeBoom and Niedrig, the latter set behind the wheel of the former Ironman World Champion. Niedrig later faded, but coming up strong was Beke. Midway through the bike, The Belgian came upon DeBoom, and recalled a lesson:
“Last year, Thomas Hellriegel and I were riding together and I was in a group, then rested, then tried to get away, and didn’t get away. He said, ‘If you’re going to pass someone, fly by them, so they don’t even think of getting on you.’”
So, Beke motored through the field after a 52-minute swim, then rode up hard to—and past—DeBoom to take the lead. He powered to T2 with a 4:30:21 bike split—the fastest of the day—to start the run from the front. However, DeBoom was lurking only 90 seconds back. Third place on the bike was defending men’s champ Michael Lovato. At a distant 13 minutes behind Beke, Lovato was hoping for a miracle.
“Some days you have it and some days you don’t, but I just didn’t have the power into the headwinds,” Lovato said.
Despite DeBoom’s presence, Beke forged forward to pad his lead over by three minutes. After a 2:54 marathon, Beke had his first Ironman victory. DeBoom crossed second in 8:26, rebounding from season-ending stress fracture that sidelined him from the Hawaii Ironman last October. Lovato held off surging Czech run-specialist Petr Vabrousek for third.
As expected in the women’s race, Zeiger set up her day well with a brilliant 48:57 swim (a new course record), giving her a three-minute head start on the bike. American Hillary Biscay led the chase of Zeiger, but mechanical problems left her sidelined temporarily and out of the hunt. The pursuit was taken up by Germany’s Katja Schumacher (last year’s winner at Ironman Wisconsin) and Denmark’s Lizbeth Kristensen, as Gollnick trailed a few minutes behind the duo.
By the end of the bike, Gollnick had reeled in and passed a flagging Kristensen (who would eventually drop out) and was within a few minutes of second-place Schumacher, who started the run 8:30 behind Zeiger.
At the start of the run for the women, Zeiger’s traditional high cadence lacking pop, a sign that she was starting to pay back her eary bike effort. Sure enough, Schumacher closed to within 5:30 of the lead and surged away from Gollnick in a show of determination—one that would come back to bite her.
“She went out really hard and was gaining a gap on me in the first eight miles,” Gollnick said. “It gave me a second wind when I came back up to her.”
Gollnick took second from the tenacious German and made a concerted effort in the last nine miles to reel in Zeiger.
“My time on her was coming down two minutes a lap,” Gollnick said. “I was doing the math in my head and said “I can do this, but I gotta pick it up—a lot.”
With four miles left, Gollnick spied her quarry, but it wasn’t until mile 25 of the run—the last mile of the day—that she took the lead from daylong leader Zeiger and bounded away to a win by less than a minute. She crossed to the embraces of her three waiting children, then stood to embrace the woman she had been chasing all day.
Gollnick’s win comes after an Ironman victory drought (her last wins were at Ironman Wisconsin and Coeur d’Alene in 2003) and a spate of second-place finishes of late.
“I was second here to Michellie Jones last year, second a month ago to Jo Lawn in New Zealand, second to Joanna last year in Coeur d’Alene.” Gollnick said. “I was hurting that last lap, but I didn’t want another second-place finish.”
And as for her customary victory cartwheels (one for each Ironman win) at the end of her fourth Ironman win?
“My last Ironman win I did three and almost fell,” Gollnick said with a laugh. “This time, with Joanna less than a minute behind, I didn’t think that would be a good idea.”
2007 Ironman Arizona
April 15, 2007, Tempe, Ariz.
2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run
Men
1. Rutger Beke (BEL) 8:21:14
2. Tim DeBoom (USA) 8:26:04
3. Michael Lovato (USA) 8:37:29
4. Petr Vabrousek (CZE) 8:41:59
5. Jozsef Major (HUN) 8:42:42
6. Jonathan Caron (CAN) 8:50:56
7. James Bonney (USA) 8:52:56
8. Lewis Elliott (USA) 8:53:51
9. Lukas Vrobel (CZE) 8:58:38
10. Ain-Alar Juhanson (EST) 9:02:58
Women
1. Heather Gollnick (USA) 9:36:40
2. Joanna Zeiger (USA) 9:37:29
3. Katja Schumacher (GER) 9:44:14
4. Ute Mueckel (GER) 10:14:49
5. Terra Castro (USA) 10:18:18
6. Christine Fletcher (CAN) 10:30:02
7. Nicole Guembel (CAN) 10:38:02
8. Sandra Kruecke (GER) 10:59:35
9. Nicole Logan (USA) 11:03:34
10. Hillary Biscay (USA) 11:33:07