Triathlon Daily

From NA Sports... Oceanside, CA – The men’s race came down to the wire here as defending champion Andy Potts was able to hold off Australian Craig Alexander to take the men’s title at the 2008 Ford Ironman 70.3 California. Potts, the current world champion at the 70.3 distance, had led the race from the start of the swim but was challenged by Alexander late in the run. Alexander, of Australia, put on a surge in the latter stages of the run and the Australian actually took the lead briefly in the last mile. It was a battle to the finish line with the American Potts winning in a time of 3:58:22 just three seconds ahead of Alexander. Third place was won by Paul Ambrose of Sydney, Aus. in a time of 4:03:35. The women’s race saw a number of changes in the leaders with swim specialist Linda Gallo, Mountain View, CA first out of the water. Fairly quickly into the bike, she was passed by a trio of world champions in Michellie Jones (Aus), Mirinda Carfrae (Aus) and Samantha McGlone (Can). Jones led the women onto the bike course but saw her lead eaten away by Leanda Cave (GBR), Carfrae and Erika Csomor (Hun). Csomor, who placed third in the 2007 Ford Ironman USA Lake Placid, put in a solid bike and run to work her way through the field to ultimately win the title her in Oceanside in a time of 4:23:14 followed by Carfrae in 4:25:51 and Cave in 5:26:40. Top Male Pro Finishers 1 03:58:22 1 POTTS, ANDY, COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 2 03:58:25 8 ALEXANDER, CRAIG,AUS 3 04:03:35 22 AMBROSE, PAUL, AUS 4 04:05:31 7 THOMPSON, DAVID ST PAUL MN 5 04:05:38 4 CUNNINGHAM, RICHIE, AUS 6 04:05:48 5 JAMMAER, BERT, BEL 7 04:06:42 26 MAZURE, CYRILLE, FRA 8 04:07:33 21 CARTMELL, FRASER, GBR 9 04:07:41 41 ABEL, TORSTEN, MILL VALLE CA 10 04:09:48 27 MARSH, BRANDON, AUSTIN, TX Top Female Finishers 1 04:23:14 82 CSOMOR, ERIKA, HUN 2 04:25:51 58 CARFRAE, MIRINDA, AUS 3 04:26:40 51 CAVE, LEANDA, GBR 4 04:28:51 54 JONES, MICHELLIE, AUS 5 04:29:23 53 MCGLONE, SAMANTHA, CAN 6 04:30:15 60 MORRISON, CATRIONA, GBR 7 04:36:34 63 KOZULINA, TAMARA, UKR 8 04:39:14 52 MARSH, AMY, AUSTIN TX 9 04:40:55 65 NYSTROM, EVA, SWE 10 04:45:33 73 GOOS, SOFIE, BEL