KOHALA COAST — Nearly 1,200 athletes gathered along the sun-drenched shoreline of the beautiful Fairmont Orchid, Hawaii to compete in Saturday’s exciting Ironman 70.3 Hawaii Triathlon.
The 19 th edition of the half-ironman distance featured a 1.2-mile open water swim inPauoa Bay, followed by a 56-mile out & back bike to the Upolu Airport road sign near Hawi,and finished with a punishing 13.1-mile run through the resort grounds.
Paraguay’s Alfredo Ramirez Pinho made it look easy as he recorded the fastest time of the day to cross the finish line in 4 hours, 19 minutes and 53 seconds.
“It’s such a blast,” Ramirez Pinho said about winning at this first attempt at Ironman 70.3 Hawaii. “I am very lucky. I have family members here, John and Brian, for my support; Every Man Jack, my sponsor, as well as all my sponsors. I’m very thankful to all the volunteers who make this race possible, without the volunteers, none of us would’ve made it to the finish line.”
Pinho, who currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin, said that his race went “exactly as planned,” and it couldn’t have been more perfect.
“The plan was to swim around 30 (minutes) or 31 and try not to spike the core temp on the bike where my goal was around 2:14 or 2:15. I executed that as planned. The run (goal) was 1:21 to 1:25 and I nailed that. Also, my nutrition and hydration went perfect. My plan worked perfectly especially for this course — it’s such a beast. The conditions were beautiful, but very windy. Head wind from the beginning till the end. On the way back the wind kind of switched around so there were moments where I felt fast, moments where I felt slow, but you just got to stick to your numbers and do your own race to execute it. I feel happy to represent my country, Paraguay, and to represent Every Man Jack, and to just race for my family and friends.”
Former Kailua-Kona resident, David Wild, and Kailua-Kona’s Kaiden Lieto placed second and third overall with their times of 4:26:23 and 4:30:14 respectively.
“I feel super good,” said Wild, who currently lives and trains in Austin, Texas and isemployed as a data reporting and visualization analyst for Whole Foods. “I came into this race thinking, ‘I want to finish this race feeling like I actually raced.’ And that’s what I feel super good about. I finished running hard — like actually speeding up a bit at the very end, never bonking, never feeling super lousy because for some reason, this race always makes me feel like that. But I felt super steady and smart today.”
Wild said Saturday’s event was his eighth-time competing in the race locally known as “Honu.”
“I raced this race since I first moved out here to Kona,” Wild said. “Out of all the races I’ve done, I’ve never raced a race as many times as Honu. I feel that I’ve finally learned something. I learned that the body knows more than the mind. I can’t put it into words. There’s like numbers you can track, your times, power, and heart rate, but I learned that you just really need to feel what you can do which takes years of experience to know that this isn’t too hard, this isn’t too easy, this is just right.”
Kaiden Lieto also felt ecstatic with his third-place overall performance at his first crack at Honu, and especially after recovering from a broken collarbone earlier in the year.
“I’m really happy with my performance — I know there are some things that I need to work on but overall, I’m 100% stoked,” said the 19-year old Kailua-Kona resident. “I honestly didn’t know how it was going to go today. If you asked me yesterday, I got into my head and I like didn’t even feel like I wanted to start — I didn’t feel like I had it, I didn’t feel fired up. I’m just so happy that I overcame that mental battle, so I feel super happy.”
Lieto also happens to be the son of former professional triathlete, Chris Lieto.
“I think the crowd was amazing today especially coming out of the water,” Lieto said. “The last 50 to 100 yards of the swim, you could see all of the people on the rocks, super crowded, just cheering. I heard people cheering my name so many times out on the course. That was really cool.”
On the women’s side, San Francisco’s Kelly Barton claimed her first Ironman 70.3 Hawaii title with her time of 4:46:50.
“It feels good!” Barton said of her win. “I feel like this is one of the hardest courses I’ve ever done so it feels very satisfying. The run — it’s so hot and running on the grass is really tough. There’s also a ton of short punchy uphills that can really break you.
“The goal was to go as hard as I could on the swim and bike knowing that the run was tough. I wanted to get as much of a gap as possible and I think that it went pretty well. I was happy with my swim as I could tell I was with the front group of women. Then the bike went really well as I was pretty much out there by myself for pretty much the whole way. But it was good as I held what I was supposed to hold, and came in like 4-minutes up.”
Barton, who is employed as an investor with CapitalG (Alphabet’s Growth Investment Fund) and planned to take her Kona slot, felt her win was also a redemption of sorts for some unfinished business.
“I did it last year. Last year I had a bad race. I won my age group and placed 6 th overall, but I had a really tough day that’s why I came back. Definitely an improvement from last year. I think it was like a 20-minute PR for me.”
Brazil’s Fernanda Bau and Carolyn Olsen rounded out the women’s podium with their times of 4:54:07 and 5:04:33 respectively.
“It’s my first time here and it’s amazing,” Bau exclaimed. “I came because I wanted to qualify for the Ironman World Championships in October and I did it! It’s always been a dream for me to come to Hawaii and I want to bring my whole entire family. The experience I’ve had over the last four days here, I just want to say, thank you for making me feel so welcome here! This place is just amazing!”
The 2023 VinFast Ironman World Championships will be held on two separate race dates: The men’s race is scheduled for September 10 th in Nice, France, and the women’s race will be held in Kailua-Kona on October 14 th .
