New Zealand sportsman of the year Cameron Brown produced a stunning marathon run to finish second in Europe's biggest Ironman triathlon in Germany yesterday.
The 30-year-old Aucklander came from more than 12 minutes behind race leaders to finish second behind German Lothar Leder, who won the Quelle Challenge at Roth for the third time in a row.
In front of 100,000 spectators, Leder, the 1998 Ironman New Zealand winner, finished 4min ahead of fast-finishing Brown, who clocked 8h 21min 29s, his fastest Ironman by 3min.
Brown passed a tiring Thomas Hellriegel, the 1997 world champion, with 3km remaining on the way to the fastest marathon run of the day, running 2h 49min 29s for the 42km run.
"Second here is awesome, it's a great field. But it was Lothar's day today," Brown said.
A troublesome back proved the main concern in the unusually cool conditions early in the race.
"I was wanting to have a good bike ride but a tight back slowed me down in the early stages of the race, and I found myself 12min 30sec behind after the 180km ride."
But cooler conditions did wonders for his marathon running, as Brown picked through the field from fifth off the bike.
Brown was third out of the 3.8km swim behind Andreas Neidrig and Leder before Hellriegel pushed through to take command with a powerful 4hr 24min time for the cycling stage.
Leder claimed the lead halfway through the run with Brown grabbing second from a tiring Hellriegel with 3km left.
New Zealand's Tara-Lee Marshall did not finish in the women's race won by defending champion Nina Kraft.
* New Zealand's Hamish Carter came out of the cold with an encouraging third place in the fifth round of the International Triathlon Union World Cup in Edmonton yesterday.
Carter, preparing for the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, produced a strong performance to finish third behind Olympic champion Simon Whitfield and Australian Greg Bennett.
Ranked No 3 in the world Carter will be encouraged by the performance in a stellar field including seven of the world's top 10 ranked men, and several Commonwealth Games rivals.
- NZPA
Triathlon: Brown's sizzling run gets second place
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