Ronnie Schildknecht from Switzerland powered to the Ironman South Africa title in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Jessie Donavan, from the United States, came from behind in the women\u2019s category to take her inaugural Ironman title.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s Jon Unanue showed what he can do in the water, grabbing a slight advantage heading into T1 with a swim split of 49:16.<\/p>\n
He was closely followed by the Netherlands\u2019 Bas Diederen (49:26) and Austria\u2019s Berger Dominik (49:28.)<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s much-lauded Faris Al-Sultan tailed the leading bunch closely along with eventual winner Schildknecht and South African favourite James Cunnama slightly farther behind.<\/p>\n
Al-Sultan proved why he is an Ironman household name as he took the lead before the 40km mark.<\/p>\n
Heading onto the second loop on the bike Al-Sultan held his lead while chasers Schildknecht and Cunnama moved into second and third respectively by the 75km mark.<\/p>\n
At the 100km mark, Schildknecht had steadily whittled down Al-Sultan\u2019s fragile lead and made his move.<\/p>\n
Shortly after going onto the third loop, Al-Sultan was experiencing technical problems on the bike and withdrew from the race.<\/p>\n
Schildknecht pushed his lead, heading first into T2 with an 11-minute gap ahead of Cunnama, who entered T2 with a large group of athletes including Aigroz, Diederen, Georg Swoboda (AUT), Fran\u00e7ois Chabaud (FRA) and Herv\u00e9 Faure (FRA).<\/p>\n
After eight kilometres of the run, Cunnama, who had fallen to seventh, pulled out of the race, leaving Diederen and Viennot to make up time against the efficient Schildknecht.<\/p>\n
His lead proved to be too much in the end and the eight-time Ironman Switzerland winner added the Spec-Savers Ironman SA title to his name with a time of 8:11:23.<\/p>\n
He was eight minutes ahead of second-placed Viennot, who repeated his 2012 feat in 8:19:50. Bas Diederen took third with a time of 8:20:08.<\/p>\n