Eighth Annual Waco IRONMAN Causes Controversy
By Aubrey Tipton, Staff Writer
The eighth annual Waco IRONMAN 70.3 occurred on Oct. 4, with over 1,700 gathered to compete.
After heavy rain the previous weekend, the swim portion of the Waco half (70.3) IRONMAN was canceled.
Since the swim leg was canceled, people questioned if this was still considered a half IRONMAN. This caused a huge upset among competitors around the world on platforms like Instagram and Reddit. Many people do not believe that when the swim portion is canceled, it should still be considered an IRONMAN, because it changes the setting from a triathlon to a duathlon. The swim portion was canceled due to unsafe river conditions and debris. This is the second time IRONMAN Waco 70.3 has had to cancel the swim portion of the race; the first was in 2018 due to severe flooding.
Despite the removal of the swim portion, the rest of the race was happened. IRONMAN 70.3 consists of a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride, and a half marathon (13.1 miles), totaling 70.3 miles. Without the swim, athletes are now competing 69.1 miles
IRONMAN Waco has held two full triathlons in 2021 and 2022. A full IRONMAN consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike, and a full marathon (26.2 miles). According to the Greater Waco Sports Commission, Waco has decided to no longer host the full IRONMAN. This is due to the city and event organizers wanting to scale back to a one-day event.
The bike route started at Jefferson Ave., topped out at Herring Ave., and went all the way down to Country Road 493, then west toward Country Road 499A, then continued back up to the finish at Herring Avenue.
The running route contained two laps. The start line of the half-marathon began at North 3rd St., traveled up to N. MLK Jr. Blvd., and back down to finish after the bridge near North 3rd St.
These are the results for the top athletes in the modified race from the IRONMAN race results page. 1st place was Giacomo Mevio with a final time of 3.29.32. He had a bike time of 2:09:59 with a run of 1:18.14 in addition to a transition time (T2) of 1.19 minutes. In second place was Gabriel Chalut with a total time of 3:29.49. His bike time was 2:12.26 and his run time was two minutes shorter than Mevio coming in at 1:16.12 and also having a shorter T2 time of 1.11minutes. The leaderboard ends with Matt Merdith coming in at 3:36.10. His bike time came in at 2:12.08 and run came in at 1:22.05. His T2 pace was 36 seconds slower at 1.47.
According to official websites, IRONMAN 70.3 Waco is scheduled to return in 2027 on Nov. 14.
For more information on IRONMAN 70.3 Waco go to the website. www.ironman.com/races/im703-waco
