Great Britons Paul Amey and Leanda Cave, who each have two ITU World Championship titles, took decisive wins at the fifth annual Ford Ironman 70.3 Florida triathlon Sunday.

Cave, 30, the 2002 ITU Olympic distance World Champion and 2007 ITU long course world titlist, overcame a 30-second deficit to bike leader Dede Griesbauer with a race-best 1:26:52 half marathon to take a 1 minute 23 second margin of victory over runner-up Nina Kraft of Germany. Griesbauer, who faded with a 1:34:22 run, finished 7:46 behind Cave in third place.

Cave’s 4:22:59 finish was the fifth-best women’s time in the history of this popular race held at the Walt Disney World Resort, 2 minutes 10 seconds off Samantha McGlone’s 2006 race record.

Cave’s win caps an excellent early season string which began with a third place at Ironman 70.3 California behind Erika Csomor and Mirinda Carfrae, a win at the Nautica South Beach Miami Olympic distance event, and a second place to winner Samantha McGlone at Wildflower.

Two-time ITU Duathlon World Champion Paul Amey, 34, took charge with a race-best 2:07:10 bike and outran runner-up Santiago Ascenco of Brazil to take a 3 minute 42 second margin of victory in an overall time of 3:52:51. Two time ITU World Champion Spencer Smith of Great Britain made a strong comeback showing to take third place in 3:59:22, his best outing since a second place at the 2006 edition of Ironman Arizona.

Amey’s time was the fourth best ever at Florida Ironman 70.3, 2 minutes 24 seconds off Craig Alexander’s 2007 race-record.

Alexander, who just came off a second win at St. Croix, pulled out after finishing the bike in a four-man group who were three minutes behind Amey’s blazing bike.

The women

Griesbauer was first out of the water at Bay Lake in Fort Wilderness, hitting the white sand at Clementine Beach 25:55, topping her own race record by four seconds. Griesbauer’s swim put her one second ahead of Cave, four seconds ahead of Kraft, three minutes ahead of 2007 Florida 70.3 runner-up Heather Gollnick, and 3:10 ahead of defending champion Katja Schumacher and 2004 champion Lisa Bentley.

Griesbauer defended her slim lead on the bike with a race-best 2:26:34 bike split, 10 minutes behind Natascha Badmann’s superhuman 2:16:33 bike record set in 2005. But Griesbauer’s bike was only 36 seconds slower than the best effort by mere humans –Tine Deckers’ 2007 split.

Thus Griesbauer started her run with a 30-second gap over Cave and 49 seconds on Kraft. Gollnick, with a 28:54 swim and 2:30:09 bike, trailed by 7 minutes, as did Schumacher. Kim Loeffler, who combined a manatee-slow 34:24 swim with a second-best 2:26:33 bike, trailed by 8 minutes, and Bentley lagged 9 minutes behind with a 29:04 swim and 2:31:35 bike.

Soon, Cave and Kraft blasted past Griesbauer. Ultimately, Cave’s race-best 1:26:52 run held Kraft’s solid, third-best 1:27:50 half marathon at bay for the win. Bentley’s second best 1:27:29 run advanced her from 7th to 4th but was not enough to catch Griesbauer, who hung tough for third. Defending champion Schumacher and her 1:31:38 run held off a hard charging Kim Loeffler and her 1:29:56 run by just seven seconds for 5th place.

The men

Bryan Rhodes of New Zealand was first out of the water in 25:09, followed by a tight group eight seconds later led by Kevin Lisska, Craig Alexander and TJ Tollakson, with a third group another 10 seconds later, including Marcus Ornellas of Brazil, Spencer Smith, Amey, Brent Poulsen of Canada, Ascenco and Andrew Hodges of Huntsville, Alabama.

On the bike, Amey showed the cycling strength that led him to ITU duathlon World titles in 2005 and 2007 with a race-best 2:07:11 bike split. While far off Bjorn Andersson’s 2:02:43 course record set in 2004 and TJ Tollakson’s 2:04:26 in 2007, Amey’s bike split was 1:49 faster than Ascenco and 3 minutes up on the rest of his challengers. Amey then polished off the contest with his race-best 1:17:18 run, which was 1:53 faster than Ascenco’s run and 55 seconds faster than fourth overall Courtney Ogden’s second-best 1:18:12 half marathon.

Curiously, defending champion Alexander and 2007 Eagleman winner TJ Tollakson both dropped out after the bike.

Ford Ironman 70.3 Florida
Walt Disney World, Florida
May 18, 2008
S 1.2mi/ B 56 mi/ R 13.1 mi

Results

Elite men

1. Paul Amey (Gbr) 3:52:51
2. Santiago Ascenco (Bra) 3:56:33
3. Spencer Smith (Gbr) 3:59:34
4. Courtney Ogden (Aus) 3:59:42
5. Kevin Lisska (Fletcher NC) 3:59:56
6. Bryan Rhodes (Nzl) 4:03:10
7. Brent Poulsen (Can) 4:05:18
8. Andrew Hodges (Huntsville AL) 4:11:56
9. Brad Seng (Boulder CO) 4:17:30
10. Marcus Ornellas (Bra 4:18:45

Elite women

1. Leanda Cave (Gbr) 4:22:52
2. Nina Kraft (Ger) 4:24:15
3. Dede Griesbauer (Boston MA) 4:30:38
4. Lisa Bentley (Can) 4:31:47
5. Katja Schumacher (Ger) 4:34:45
6. Kim Loeffler (Colchester VT) 4:34:52
7. Heather Gollnick (Bradenton FL) 4:36:05
8. Sione Jongstra (Ned) 4:43:53
9. Michelle Leblanc (The Woodlands TX) 4:48:00
10. Teri Albertazzi (Tucson AZ) 4:49:02