(Belga) Pieter Heemeryck took 2nd place at the Ironman in Kalmar on Saturday in Sweden. Runner-up to Britain’s Alistair Brownlee, the 32-year-old from Leuven secured one of the two qualifying tickets for the legendary Hawaii triathlon, final of the world circuit, on October 8 in Kona.
Heemeryck completed the 3.8 km swim, 182 km bike and 42.195 km run, in 7h46:39, beaten only by the double Olympic and world short distance champion, winner in the excellent time of 7h38 :48. German Franz Loeschke completes the podium in 7h48:18, ahead of Dane Thor Madsen (7h51:14) and Stenn Goetstouwers (7h51:45). Heemeryck came out of the water 6th, just 16 seconds from the lead. On a bike, he accompanied the fastest, dropping his machine in 2nd place, 26 seconds behind the Swede Jesper Svensson. From the start of the marathon, Brownlee nibbling his delay on the Swede, while Heemeryck took a more cautious start. The classification cleared up following the 11th km of running, with Brownlee in the lead almost 3:00 ahead of Heemeryck, another Belgian, Goetstouwers, pointing in 5th position. While Svensson paid for his efforts, Goetstouwers moved up to 3rd position in the half-marathon, before also running out of energy at the end of the race to finish 5th. Brownlee and Heemeryck were no longer in danger for the first 2 places. In Hawaii, the ladies’ race is scheduled for October 6, the men’s race 2 days later. The Norwegian Kristian Blummenfelt is the men’s title holder, following his 1st coronation last May in St-George (USA), where Heemeryck finished 19th. The race had been moved to Utah following the Hawaii final in October 2021 was canceled due to the pandemic. The Swiss Daniela Ryf had her 5th world success on the circuit there. (Belga)