Triathlon: The World Championships in Kona are casting their long shadow and the Ironman series is slowly but surely reaching its climax. At the Ironman Malaysia, Diana Riesler (Team TBB) was able to leave the assembled competition behind and celebrate her first Ironman victory.
After getting out of the water in third place, she was able to quickly catch up to the front on her bike. After 25 kilometers she took the lead and from then on dominated the race. After 4:25 hours she started the second transition with the sixth best bike time of all participants. She then completed the marathon in 3:23 hours. Overall, she needed 9:26:38 hours for her first victory – in warm and extremely humid conditions. In the end she was more than half an hour ahead of Japan's Keiko Tanaka and Australia's Dimity-Lee Duke.
The special thing about it: only four starters were faster than them and they made up the men's podium among themselves. This was dominated by the Swedes Patrick Nilsson and Frederik Croneborg, who took the first two places. Third was the Slovak Karol Dzalaj.