Xena pips Dumbo at 70.3 Asia Pacific Champs.

teamTBB’s Caroline ‘Xena’ Steffen held off hot local favourite 'Dumbo' to cap off what can only be described as a dream season with a win at the 70.3 Asia Pacific Championships in Phuket, Thailand. However Dumbo was later disqualified on a technicality yet to be released to media. Well that's how we tell the story - here's what apparently really happened...

Xena crossed the finish line with said elephant (apparently maintaining tradition from it's previous name of the Laguna Phuket Triathlon - we like our version better) to win in a total of 4:20:13.

Xena was second out of the swim heading into T1 15sec down on Anna Cleaver, with Belinda Granger coming out in 3rd just over a minute later. Granger kept in touch on the early stages of the bike but Xena soon built a lead, showing her strength with a ride (2.23.02 for the 90km ride) that would have kept her in the mens chase pack, and clocked the fastest female split by 4mins. Obviously no issues with the stray local dogs and chickens for Xena!

She had little to do on the run but still made a respectable run time of 1:27:17 in the high humidity, finishing her 2010 season with an unblemished record in 70.3, bringing her total to an impressive 4 wins for 4. Adding those to her three 2nd place finishes in Ironman this year, most notably at the Ironman World Championships, she will rank No.1 on the leader board for the Kona Pro Ranking.

Results:
Women
1. Caroline Steffen (SUI) 4:20:13
2. Melissa Rollison (AUS) 4:24:53
3. Belinda Granger (AUS) 4:30:49
4. Michelle Wu (AUS) 4:32:13
Dumbo - DQ.

blueseventy and teamTBB paint Europe - um - pink?

Since teamTBB set up training camp on the side of a mountain in Leysin, Switzerland, they have been racing across Europe and notching up wins and podiums like it was going out of fashion. Maybe it is the fresh mountain air, or the clean water, or probably and more realistically it is down to a combination of coach barking out his orders and getting the guys to endure the lactic gradients and chilly water for yet another session.

A beautiful part of the world to be, the weather in Leysin has not been pretty over the past few weeks and this has seen the likes of Amy Marsh, James Cunnama and Rebecca Keat to name a few all taken spills off the bike. Cattle grids, rain and bikes do not make a great combination when training it seems, but while a little bruised and sore they came away with no serious damage and nothing that a few days of Deep Heat wouldn’t fix.

Despite the training tumbles when it comes to race day the guys have been clinically delivering some impressive results. The past 5weeks alone have resulted in 5 big wins. Tereza Macel – the T-Mac started the ball rolling with her win in IM Brazil. That momentum was carried across numerous time zones and into Europe where the team has kept on winning with Caroline ‘Xena’ Steffen taking 70.3 Switzerland and in the same weekend Rebekah Keat taking the Challenge Germany title for the 2nd year in a row. The following week she backed it up by winning Challenge France for the 2nd year in a row too! Next up for Bek and the race to watch this month is Roth on July 18th. She broke the world record last year but still had to settle for second behind Chrissie Wellington. With the same line-up this year Roth is sure to be a close one to watch.

A summary of the top results for the team:

May:

IM Lanzarote – Bella 2nd (Read about it here)

IM Brazil – T-Mac 1st, Donna 5th (Read about it here)

June:

Austria 70.3 Erika 2nd nail biting STUFF historical (read about it here) 

And then we went from strength to strength

June 6th IM 70.3 Swiss – Xena WINS (read about it here) 

June 6th Challenge Germany – Bek Wins and James 2nd – fastest legs! (read about it here)

June 13th Challenge FRANCE - Bek was on a roll and picked up another WIN (read about it here)

June 20th T-mac grabs a training day 2nd in Dutch open champs – and a nice picture of her in the blue70 wettieJ (read about it here)

June 20th IM 70.3 UK – BELLA strikes and Tamsin in her pro debut follows in second (read about it here)

June 27th Erika grabs another second in IM France AND her slot for Kona (read about it here)

July 4th Caroline Steffen (Xena) delivers an awesome personal best performance in IM Frankfurt; second place and a slot for Kona it is only a matter of time before she climbs on the top step. (read about it here)

blueseventy athletes dominate IM 70.3UK

blueseventy athletes Fraser Cartmell and Bella Bayliss took out the very challenging IM 70.3 UK on the weekend.

Cartmell was 2nd out the water behind Philip Graves after a bit of a scrappy swim. While Graves put on a race best bike of 2.30.24, it was Cartmells strong run that had the race won after the first lap of the run. Despite easing up on the second lap (in prep for IMUK) Cartmell still ran a very impressive 1.17.02 for the win by over 3mins from 2nd placed Graves. This is his third win in five years, and judging by the email we got from his coach, Gordon Crawford, things are looking very positive in Camp Cartmell!

In the women's race it was fellow blueseventy athlete Lucie Zelenkova leading out of the water by over a minute from Emma-Kate Lidbury, but Zelenkova retired on the ride, with Libdury holding her lead into the run.

While it was not to be Lucie's day, the teamTBB girls were on fire! Bella Bayliss came off the bike in third place and overcame a 1.30 deficit to take the win, with team mate Tamsin Lewis claiming 2nd place in her first professional race. Bayliss also won the race in 2008 and was 2^nd runner up in 2009.