Chris McCormack and Tim Berkel in a Sprint Finish at Ironman 70.3 Japan

Chris McCormack has narrowly out sprinted fellow Australian Tim Berkel to win Ironman 70.3 Japan. The official results show that McCormack beat Tim by just two seconds. Macca's 4:03:40 was identical in each stage of the race with Berkel's The results are not showing a swim time for Macca

Chris McCormack has narrowly out sprinted fellow Australian Tim Berkel to win Ironman 70.3 Japan. The official results show that McCormack beat Tim by just two seconds. Macca’s 4:03:40 was identical in each stage of the race with Berkel’s

The results are not showing a swim time for Macca but his T1 was 23:34 and Berkel’s was 3:24 so we can assume that their swim times were both around the 20:29 mark.

Speaking to Tim Berkel after the race things didn’t go to plan at the start of the bike. “Macca had a 10sec advantage coming out of T1 but I rode up to him then lost all my gels 2kms into the bike. Macca was incredibly generous and gave me a couple of his gels.”

Berkel and McCormack got off the bike together. “We ran the whole race together. I attacked him at the 17km mark and got a little gap. Macca then caught me again and I tried once more at 19km. I got a small gap and gave it everything. I didn’t want to get in a sprint finish with because of all the ITU training he has been doing. He caught me at the finish shoot and took off. I was gone. I gave it a big crack though. Full credit to Macca it was an honour to race with him.”

All that speed work Macca has been doing for the last year finally paid off in the sprint today.

Tim Berkel now heads off to the USA to race Ironman 70.3 Muncie.

Name	Country	Swim	Bike	Run	Finish	Div. Rank	Overall
McCormack, Chris	Australia	0:00:00	2:23:30	1:14:58	4:03:40	1	1
Berkel, Tim	Australia	0:20:29	2:23:10	1:15:00	4:03:42	2	2
Croneborg, Fredrik	Sweden	0:20:34	2:30:41	1:16:01	4:12:19	3	3
Misawa, Yoshinori	Japan	0:24:39	2:34:00	1:13:47	4:18:34	1	4
Felbabel, Erich	Hong Kong	0:22:43	2:28:53	1:24:00	4:20:37	4	5
Fuller, Brian	Australia	0:20:37	2:31:07	1:24:06	4:21:24	1	6
Yamamoto, Shinji	Japan	0:23:13	2:34:13	1:17:51	4:21:53	2	7
Hiramatsu, Kodo	Japan	0:20:53	2:37:43	1:19:42	4:22:52	5	8
Edmiston, Grant	South Africa	0:22:46	2:34:09	1:21:01	4:23:44	1	9
Hayashi, Keisuke	Japan	0:25:05	2:33:57	1:19:28	4:24:20	2	10

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Written by

Karl Hayes

Karl is a Gold Coast based father of 3, a keen home improver and an age group triathlete who races on the M5 Acadamies triathlon team. ‘A good life balance is incredibly important’.

trizone.com.au

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