Eneko Llanos closes campaign winning Arizona Ironman in less than eight hours

The Alavés Eneko Llanos has closed the season by winning the Ironman Arizona race held today, Sunday, in Tempe, United States, achieving a race time of less than eight hours.

The Vitorian finished the race with a time of seven hours, 59 minutes and 38 seconds and becomes the second triathlete in history to finish below the eight-hour barrier in an Ironman event held in the United States.

Eneko closed the 2011 season with this victory, after a tough fight in the race sector, ahead of the British Paul Arney, who crossed the finish line with a time of eight hours, one minute and 29 seconds.

This data demonstrates the good form of the Alava team in the last test of the calendar competitive and the good preparation he has done for the race.

Llanos has been the strongest and has gone from less to more in the swimming sectors, bike and running.

The Vitorian arrived in eleventh position at the transition between the swimming test and the bicycle, two minutes behind the head of the race.

In the cycling course, Llanos has shown that it is the specialty that he best masters because he has begun to surpass rivals to take the lead in the Ironman in the middle of the cycling sector, surpassing Arney by more than a minute and a half.

Llanos continued his good work on the bicycle and in the final change to get off the two wheels and begin the final race on foot, he was ahead of the Dane Martín Jensen and the local Tim O'Donell by a minute and a half, while Arney lost almost two minutes from fifth place.

The Alavés started off weakly in the foot race, while Arney exhibited all his strength and chased him after eleven kilometres, from which point they have been together gaining a comfortable lead over the rest of their rivals.

With the two favorites for victory at the head of the race, the kilometers were consumed and, in the final stretch, Eneko burned the ships, distanced the British with less than four thousand meters to go and rode victorious to the finish line.

Source: .abc.es