The 13th running of the New Balance Half IM took place today under near ideal conditions at Elk Lake in Victoria, Canada. The race, steeped in tradition, has included Ironman legends Lori Bowden, Peter Reid, and Jasper Blake to name a few. The race was originally billed as the “Battle of the Champions” with local stars Blake and Cheryl Murphy set to take on respective international competitors and fellow Subaru Series Champions Andrej Yastrebov (UKR) and Linsey Corbin (US). As fate would have it, illness kept both Blake and Murphy from competing paving the way for Corbin and Yastrebov to take the titles and for other local stars to shine.

Daniel Wells, a swim specialist and former Junior Canadian Triathlon Team member lead the men’s heat out of the water by an astonishing 4 minutes. This lead however did not hold up on the bike as he was overtaken by Trevor Wurtele of Victoria and Yastrebov. Yastrebov then carried on into a blistering run pace to set a new run course record with a split of 1:12:06 - good for an overall time of 3:57:14. Wurtele finished a strong second in a time of 4:00:57, while his wife Heather Wurtele was concurrently winning Ironman Coeur D’Alene with Wells rounding out the podium in 4:02:58.

The woman’s event was a runaway victory for Corbin who lead from the first few minutes of the bike and continually widened her lead eventually winning by 16 minutes. Local athlete Tiffany Evans had a solid race to finish second with Sheila Gillis from Calgary in third. Corbin commented:

“This was a good day. The course and amateur athletes in this race were so great – it reminded me of why I got into this sport in the first place”

The next stop on the Subaru West Coast Triathlon Series will be the Subaru Vancouver Half and Sprint Triathlon on July 13th. This Series is organized by LifeSport, “The Official Coaches of Ironman. The Top 5 finishers were as follow:

Men:
1. Andrej Yastrebov (UKR) 3:57:14
2. Trevor Wurtele (CAN) 4:00:57
3. Danielle Wells (US) 4:02:58
4. Steven Kilshaw (CAN) 4:05:37
5. Julian Hatcher (UK) 4:13:26

Women:
1. Linsey Corbin (US) 4:21:53
2. Tiffany Evans (CAN) 4:37:53
3. Sheila Gillis (CAN) 4:38:28
4. Janet Nielsen (CAN) 4:50:32
5. Alyson Littman (US) 4:54:04