Paul Ambrose and Mirinda Carfrae headline Australian challenge on Rhoto Ironman 70.3

Paul Ambrose and Mirinda Carfrae will put Australia in with a very good chance at getting line honours in a talented field at Rhoto Ironman 70.3, Oceanside California on Saturday. They are not the only Australian hopes with Kate Major, Christie Sym and Chris McDonald also hoping to be on the podium this weekend.  Mirinda is not only the current Ironman world champion but is also the two-time defending champion at Rhoto.

Mirinda is not only the current Ironman world champion but is also the two-time defending champion at Rhoto. It will be interesting to see how she backs up from Ironman New Zealand where she was undoubtedly in good form, and was nearly able to take out the win despite having a long wait on the side of the road with bike problems. She should find the weather conditions much more to her liking this time. Kate Major appears to also be hitting form at the right time for this race having scored an impressive second placing at San Juan 70.3 just a couple of weeks ago. No doubt the vetran Aussie athlete will be keen to show the young whipper snapper a thing or two, and having won this race in 2007 she knows how to do it! Another Australian whipper snapper keen to impress will be Christie Sym who had a solid performance at Abu Dhabi recently finishing 14th overall.

There are a number of international athletes who are likely to feature strongly including Linsey Corbin, Magali Tisseyre, Kelly Williamson, Dede Griesbauer, Hillary Biscay and Heather Wurtele.

Australian hopes in the mens filed will be focused on Paul Ambrose, winner of Ironman Louisville, who has also had a run of impressive performances at recent 70.3 races including 2nd at Lake Stevens and 3rd at Rhode Island. But he will have his work cut out to get on the podium with such a deep and high quality mens field. Only one of the athletes wearing the first 13 race numbers for Saturday’s race hasn’t won an Ironman (Matty Reed – Olympian and former champion of the event). Reed finished second last year, and won the year before. The year before that Andy Potts took the title. Rasmus Henning finished third last year. Expect the winner to come from one of these athletes.

Pro Field:

1 Matty Reed
2 Andy Potts
3 Rasmus Henning
4 Chris Legh
7 Ben Hoffman
8 Maik Twelsiek
9 Michael Weiss
10 Jozsef Major
11 Chris Mcdonald
12 Jordan Rapp
13 Bryan Rhodes
14 Paul Ambrose
15 Bjorn Andersson
16 Torsten Abel
17 Mike Aigroz
18 Jimmy Archer
19 Paulo Baranda
20 Jasper Blake
21 Karl Bordine
22 Christian Brader
23 Mac Brown
24 James Burns
25 Chris Coble
26 John Dahlz
28 Mikel Elgezabal
29 Lewis Elliot
30 Kevin Everett
32 Brendan Halpin
33 Craig Howie
34 Adam Jensen
36 Stephen Kilshaw
37 Kyle Leto
38 Matt Lieto
39 Jim Lubinski
40 Ian Mikelson
41 Callum Millward
42 Mike Neill
44 Kyle Pawlaczyk
45 Ken Rakestraw
46 Ryan Rau
47 Nick Saunders
48 Ronnie Schildknecht
49 Matt Shryock
50 Jeff Symonds
51 Nicholas Thompson
52 Anthony Toth
53 Allan Villanueva
55 Trevor Wurtele
56 James Duff
57 Kirill  Kotsegarov
58 Markus Ressler
59 Maxim Kriat
60 Will Smith

67 Mirinda Carfrae
69 Linsey Corbin
70 Magali Tisseyre
71 Kelly Williamson
72 Dede Griesbauer
73 Hillary Biscay
74 Heather Wurtele
75 Melanie Mcquaid
76 Mirjam Weerd
77 Mackenzie Madison
78 Heather Jackson
80 Jennifer Luebke
81 Kelly Dunleavy
83 Lauren Harrison
84 Christie Sym
85 Charisa Wernick
86 Erin Spitler
87 Rachel Challis
88 Kate Major
89 Fiona Whitby
90 Tamara  Kozulina
91 Jennifer  Tetrick
92 Lesley Paterson
93 Desiree Ficker