Gomez, Moffatt Victorious At Hy-Vee 5150 Elite Cup

Published September 1, 2013 10:57AM

This year’s Hy-Vee 5150 U.S. Championship featured a few distinct changes. Organizers of the Des, Moines, Iowa race known for having the richest prize purse in triathlon announced earlier in the year that the prize purse would be cut from $1 million to $500,000. The $5150 primes that were offered in 2012 were also eliminated. The biggest changes logistically were the merging of the elite and age-group race, and a major course change that had the athletes finishing at Grey’s Lake instead of downtown. The pro men and women used to race separately from each other, and from the age group athletes, later in the afternoon. Today, the professionals kicked off the action and raced alongside the amateurs in Des Moines.

The race is always unique in that it features athletes who specialize in all distances, and showcased world champions from Olympic, 70.3 and Ironman racing. Despite the cut in prize money, the race still featured one of the highest payouts in the sport and welcomed several high-profile triathletes—including defending champion and 2012 Olympic silver medalist Javier Gomez (ESP). In a surprise move, Lisa Norden (SWE) withdrew the morning of the race. With all three members of the 2012 women’s podium missing (Sarah Haskins and Jodie Stimpson also didn’t race), the women’s race was wide open. In the end it was two London Olympians, Gomez and Emma Moffatt (AUS), who earned the big pay days and the titles.

Men’s Race
After a 45-minute delay due to the effects of an overnight storm, the men started the day at 7:30 a.m. CDT. Gomez kicked off his day by leading out of the 1.5K swim in 17:17. He was followed by Ivan Vasiliev (RUS), Josh Amberger (AUS), Hunter Kemper (USA), Denis Vasiliev (RUS) and Cameron Dye (USA). The race started at a fiery pace, with 18 of the 30 elite men coming into T1 within a minute of Gomez.

As he always does, Dye excelled on the bike (54:01) and earned a lead heading into T2. Greg Bennett (AUS), the 2011 winner of this race, posted a blazing bike split (53:52) to follow Dye onto the run course, with Kemper not far behind him. Gomez, the strongest runner of the men, came onto the 10K course with work to do as he was about a minute down of the leaders.

The gap turned out to be no problem for Gomez, who will go after the ITU World Championship in two weeks in London. He dominated the 10K run in 30:30 to earn his second Hy-Vee 5150 Elite Cup title in a row in 1:45:57. Kemper duplicated his second-place finish from 2012, finishing close behind Gomez at 1:46:09. Bennett also earned the same result from 2012, finishing third at 1:47:10.

Women’s Race
American Lauren Brandon gained a nice advantage out of the swim thanks to a time of 18:29. Moffatt, Nicky Samuels (NZL) and Catherine Jameson (GBR) were the next three into T1 about 15 seconds later. American Laura Bennett led the next group out of the water, nearly a minute back of Brandon.

Moffatt followed her solid swim with an equally strong bike (1:00:41). Germany’s Svenja Bazlen (59:56), Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf (59:22) and the United States’ Alicia Kaye (59:49) all biked under one hour, but lost a fairly significant amount of time to Moffatt on the swim, and couldn’t keep her away to start the run. Former 70.3 world champion Melissa Hauschildt (AUS) also biked under one hour (59:27), but was even farther back to start the run due to a 21:20 swim time.

Moffatt dominated the race from T2 on. Her 34:59 10K run time gave her the victory in 1:57:04. Hauschildt worked her way through the field with the fastest 10K run time of the women (34:52) to take the runner-up spot. Bazlen’s capped off a well-rounded day with a 36:43 run to earn third.

Hy-Vee 5150 Elite Cup
Des Moines, Iowa – Sept. 1, 2013
1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run

Men
1. Javier Gomez (ESP) 1:45:57
2. Hunter Kemper (USA) 1:46:09
3. Greg Bennett (AUS) 1:47:10
4. Paul Matthews (AUS) 1:47:54
5. Kevin Collington (USA) 1:48:09
6. Bevan Docherty (NZL) 1:48:29
7. Ivan Vasiliev (RUS) 1:48:41
8. Ruedi Wild (SUI) 1:48:54
9. Bertrand Billard (FRA) 1:49:23
10. Cameron Dye (USA) 1:49:29

Women
1. Emma Moffatt (AUS) 1:57:04
2. Melissa Hauschildt (AUS) 1:58:30
3. Svenja Bazlen (GER) 1:58:48
4. Nicky Samuels (NZL) 1:59:18
5. Lauren Goss (USA) 1:59:27
6. Alicia Kaye (USA) 2:00:05
7. Meredith Kessler (USA) 2:00:24
8. Daniela Ryf (SUI) 2:01:20
9. Liz Blatchford (GBR) 2:01:41
10. Radka Vodickova (CZE) 2:02:03

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