Mens racing returned to Arizona for the first time since 2018. One of the last races of the year with a strong line up, the start list included Joe Skipper, Sam Long, Matt Hanson and Ben Kanute. Kanute was making his IM debut after a great performance in the IM 70.3 world championships, could the rookie cause an upset in Tempe?
Swim
#1 PTO ranked swimmer Andrew Horsfall-Turner was straight to the front of the swim and only Ben Kanute was able to hang with him. This pair quickly established a gap over the other athletes and it even looked like Kanute was working hard to follow Horsfall-Turner’s feet. Kanute came past a couple times to take a turn on the front but towards the end of the swim Horsfall-Turner put in a surge and gained a small advantage of 18 seconds.
The first pack of chasers was lead out by Simon Shi with a 2:45 gap to the front and featured 9 athletes within 30 seconds. Kristian Hogenhaug was towards the front of this group, Matt Hanson and Joe Skipper both had great swims and also made this group.
Sam Long wasn’t able to make the first chase pack but limited his deficit to 4:33. A good result considering this race featured two of the best swimmers in all long course triathlon. The gap of 1:20 to Skipper was more concerning as he would need to work hard to bridge up.
Bike
Horsfall-Turner gained a further 30 seconds on Kanute through transition and was the first athlete to start riding. Hanson was another athlete that made the most of transition, moving up from 8th to 3rd.
Kanute reeled in Horsfall-Turner over the opening 15k. At this point Skipper and Hogenhaug had broken away from the chase pack and sat 2 minutes back. The next pack of 4 athletes were a further minute back and featured Hanson and Long.
Hogenhaug and Skipper bridged up to the leaders within 30k and increased their advantage over the Long and Hanson to over 2 minutes. After riding with Horsfall-Turner and Kanute and recovering from the surge to bridge up, Hogenhaug and Skipper moved to the front and started to breakaway. They knew Long would start chipping away at the lead if they didn’t push the pace.
Hogenhaug briefly broke away from skipper, gaining a 10 second advantage, but Skipper came back and the pair rode together for the majority of the bike course. Through half way they had 2 minutes over Long, 4 minutes on Long and 7 minutes on Hanson.
They continued to work together until the final 10k, where Hogenhaug broke away and gained 17 seconds coming into T2. The gaps to the chasers continued to increase, Kanute +5:09, Long +8:38 and Hanson +13:43.
Run
Hogenhaug was quick through transition and increased his advantage over Skipper to 40 seconds, nothing for the Brit to worry about but enough of a gap for Hogenhaug to settle into the run and his own pace. Skipper bridge up within 8k and the pair ran together for the next 5k before Skipper brokeaway and build a minute advantage through 16k.
Kanute was running at a similar pace to Skipper and was maintaining the 5 minute gap from the start of the run. Hanson came flying out of T2 and through 16k he had reduced the gap from 13:43 to 8:33. He had come past Long who looked good coming through T2 but was having to pull over to stretch his back. This was clearly having an impact on how he was able to run.
Through halfway Skipper’s lead over Hogenhaug stretched to 2:28, Kanute had also dropped a minute to the Brit but Hanson kept coming and took another minute out of Skipper. Hanson continued to close in on Kanute and further up Hogenhaug continued to slow. Kanute and Hanson overtook Hogenhaug together around 35k and Hanson then gapped Kanute.
Hanson’s gap to Skipper was too large to overcome but he managed to cut it to 3:48 by the finish, taking nearly 10 minutes out of him over the run course. Kanute took the final spot on the podium in his debut and Hogenhaug dropped to 4th.
Results
Skipper looked in control all day, he hit the front early and worked with Hogenhaug to establish a gap on the rest of the field. He then broke away on the run and had enough of a gap over the fast moving Hanson to take the win.
- Joe Skipper – 7:46:00
- Matt Hanson – 7:49:48
- Ben Kanute – 7:51:25
- Kristian Hogenhaug – 7:56:38
- Bart Aernouts – 8:03:25
With another strong performance Joe Skipper will move into the top 10 of the PTO rankings. He will be joined by Ben Kanute who moves up from 16th to 9th. Kanute mas moved from 28th into the top 10 over the last month.
Triathlon Insights 
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