Bevan Docherty has never been beaten at the 70.3 IM race distance and today was no exception. He won Ironman 70.3 Panama this morning. But the Kiwi triathlete only edged out the win at Ironman 70.3 Panama by a mere 32 seconds ahead of second place finisher (and of course seven-time Tour De France Champion) Lance Armstrong.
In what must be a great first Ironman race for the professional cyclist turned pro triathlete, 38-year-old Lance Armstrong showed that even after a career spent riding and racing the bike, he still has what it takes to compete in the sport of triathlon at the highest level.
Before the race Armstrong tweeted, "Average start time for a TdF stage? 12 noon. Wake up? 9am. This triathlon stuff... 6:45 start wake up 3:45. Big difference."
But while Armstrong started much earlier, he also finished the race much earlier in a time of 3:50:13 taking a solid second place. Armstrong came into his own on the bike when he cut through much of the professional field like a...well...a multi TdF champion. He come into T2 in second place only a few seconds behind American triathlete Chris Lieto.
On the run he took the lead, but was eventually beat across the finishline by Bevan Docherty.
"Uh.... that was painful! Can't complain tho. Very happy with my race and 2 be back in the tri game. Congrats to @bevanjdocherty on the win." Armstrong tweeted after the race.
Boulder, Colorado based triathlete Richie Cunningham rounded out the podium crossing the finishline in third place in a time of 3:52:59.
Ironman 70.3 Panama
1.2m swim / 56m bike / 13.1m run
Top 10 Processional Men
1 Docherty, Bevan 0:18:54 2:14:37 1:12:50 3:50:13
2 Armstrong, Lance 0:19:22 2:10:18 1:17:01 3:50:55
3 Cunningham, Richie 0:19:19 2:14:35 1:15:35 3:52:59
4 Henning, Rasmus 0:19:00 2:13:47 1:16:51 3:53:38
5 Guillaume, Romain 0:19:03 2:14:41 1:17:08 3:54:44
6 Thomas, Jesse 0:20:08 2:16:17 1:15:01 3:55:30
7 Lieto, Chris 0:19:38 2:10:08 1:22:38 3:56:21
8 Vasilyev, Ivan 0:18:51 2:20:09 1:15:55 3:58:32
9 Galindez, Oscar 0:20:50 2:09:59 1:25:40 4:00:53
10 Jammaer, Bert 0:19:19 2:19:46 1:18:28 4:01:24
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