Triathlon News / Ironman World Championship: Patrick Lange has won the Ironman Hawaii for the second time in a row. As in the previous year, the 32-year-old was able to demonstrate his unbelievable qualities in the final run to distance himself from the competition. He was the first athlete ever to break the 8-hour mark.
As in the previous year, the winner of the Ironman Hawaii 2018 is Patrick Lange! After 7:52:39 he was the first to cross the finish line in Kona, relegating Bart Aernouts to 2nd place and David McNamee to 3rd place a good gap of just over three minutes, Lange climbed out of the water. On the bike he showed an exceptional performance and was nine minutes faster than last year. The Australian Camerontron lived up to his reputation as a two-wheeler specialist and beat his own record from the previous year by more than two minutes. He was also the first to go into the final marathon.
On the other hand, things were not going so well for Sebastian Kienle: After a very good performance in the water, he suffered a defect at the beginning of the cycling session, which cost him a lot of time. After that, the 2014 World Champion was no longer able to pedal as usual and had to bury his hopes of winning again.
Lange was a little more than four minutes behind the leading shot at the beginning of the marathon. But again the German was able to show off his qualities in running and in the first half of the running distance, he conceded competitor after competitor, until he was finally able to take the lead of the race shortly before the 20-mile mark. What followed was nothing less than a show of force: step by step, his lead over his closest pursuer, Bart Aernouts from Belgium, grew. Behind them, David McNamee, Braden Currie and Tim O'Donnell fought for the last remaining spot on the podium, which McNamee finally secured.
#IMWC Germany's @PatrickLange1 is the 2018 IRONMAN World Champion brought to you by Amazon, in a course record time of 7:52:39! pic.twitter.com/JuXmj5qQyK
— IRONMANLive (@IRONMANLive) October 14, 2018
Finally, Lange crossed the finish line in 7:52:39, making him the first Ironman athlete in Hawaii to break the magical 8-hour mark. The extreme speed this year is also underlined by the other times of Bart Aernouts (7:56:41) and David McNamee (8:01:09), who were also able to beat last year's record time.