Coming off one of the closest finishes in Ironman history this spring in Arizona, US triathlete Jordon Rapp was victorious today over the Half Ironman distance in the beautiful west coast community of Shawnigan Lake. Rapp bested former Ironman Wisconsin Champion Andriy Yastrebov from the Ukraine (2nd), with last year’s winner Jasper Blake of Canada rounding out the podium in third. The woman’s event proved to be the “Battle of Vancouver” with Rachel Kiers taking the victory followed by Karen Birkenhead and Shannon Back respectively.

The race served as the Subaru Men’s Championship and lived up to its billing. The Canadian military started the race with a blast from a Howitzer cannon where former Canadian National U23 members Andrew McCartney and Daniel Wells quickly moved to the front and lead out of water along with relay athlete and Canadian Olympian Brent McMahon. Former Ironman Canada Champion Blake was the next man out of the water 2:30 back of the leaders just behind relay member Lisa Mensink, a Dutch Olympic Team hopeful. Rapp and Yastrebov exited a further 2 minutes back where Rapp quickly began his assault on the bike, overtaking Blake posting the course record bike split of 2:09:14. Rapp ran aggressively out of the second transition with a 4 minute lead and never looked back while Blake and Yastrebov ran side by side until the 17k mark where Yastrebov opened a gap and held on for second. Rapp commented after race:

“I felt confident on the run today, this is a beautiful course and I believe I have an advantage on trail running over the pavement – it is how I have trained most of my life”.

The Sprint event was won by two aspiring Canadian Olympic athletes looking to confirm their places for Beijing in 2 weeks time at the ITU World Championships in Vancouver; Kirsten Sweetland of Victoria and Paul Tichelaar of Calgary.

The next race on the Subaru West Coast Triathlon Series will be the New Balance Half held in Victoria on June 22nd. This Series is organized by LifeSport, “The Official Coaches of Ironman”.

For full results visit www.lifesport.ca and more information contact Shantel Cordeiro at shantel@lifesport.ca