Lottie Wilms wins third place in Ironman Busselton and wins the Nice final, and Ilse Visser misses the podium

Last night, all eyes were on Australia, where Lottie Wilms and Else Visser competed against each other, but also other women, during the Busselton Ironman Championships. However, there was no real fight between the two Dutch women, because Wilms was clearly stronger than Visser today. Wilms finished the race in a nice third place, thus instantly securing a place in next year’s IRONMAN World Championships. Visser finished fourth, so he is out of the podium and has yet to secure a place in the World Cup.

Exactly what everyone had taken for granted happened in the water; Fenella Langridge – the eventual winner – set off with Wilms and the two exited the water with a wide lead. They did so after 51 minutes, then waited more than three minutes for Chloe Lane and Lisa Norden, more than six minutes for Maki Takahashi and more than 11 minutes for Visser. For Visser, this meant a huge deficit at the start of the game and therefore not an ideal starting position for the rest of the day.

While Visser is usually able to spend a lot of time on the bike, he was unable to do so during the Ironman Busselton race. In reality; Visser’s deficit widened significantly, reducing her chances of a podium finish. Meanwhile, Wilms and Langridge continued to drive together and the situation remained unchanged for a long time. However, it was Norden who was mainly working on an impressive bit of cycling and slowly but surely closed in on the two leaders and eventually joined them before the 100km mark.

Serious differences only emerged in the second half of the cycling segment; Norden pushed well and quickly pulled away from Langridge and Willems. Although Langridge was unable to keep up with Norden, the British racer was able to pull away from Willems, who remained in third place alone. In this position the women also entered T2: Norden in front, Langridge in second in 4:59 minutes and Willems in third in 8:29 minutes. Behind that, the battle was already over, with Lin taking fourth place with a time of 21:36 minutes and Visser taking fifth place with a time of 22:34 minutes. Marion Twain, the third Dutch participant, came in sixth place, but was fifty minutes behind. During the marathon, you will not only lose many positions, but you will also lose a lot of time.

During the run, there was nothing but an exciting battle between Norden and Langridge. Norden remained in front for a long time, although she had to watch at every measuring point as Langridge repeatedly made up some time behind her. After about 29 kilometers, Norden’s lead ended and Langridge took the lead. Wilms ran unthreatened into third and Visser overtook Lynn, but never seriously secured a podium place again.

Langridge won the race in a time of 8:29:43. Norden was second with a time of 8:33:02 and Wilms was third with a time of 8:40:59. Visser finished fourth with a time of 8:50:13.