Boulder’s Lesley Smith and Jeanni Seymour Go 1-2 at Austin 70.3

At this year’s IRONMAN 70.3 Austin, just over 2,100 athletes took part in the 1.2-mile swim in Decker Lake, the 56-mile bike ride through rolling Texas farmland and the three-loop half-marathon run that finished in Luedecke Arena.

In the women’s race, Boulder resident and South African Jeanni Seymour finished the swim a couple of seconds ahead of American Sarah Cameto. The two had about a 30-second lead on Boulder’s Lesley Smith (USA) and Poland’s Ewa Komander, while Jennifer Luebke came out of Decker Lake just under a minute behind the lead.

Seymour was still in front through the halfway point of the ride, but had some company in the form of Komander, Smith and Cometo, who were all within six seconds. By the end of the ride Semour and Smith had broken free, and started the run over four minutes ahead of Luebke, Komander and Katya Meyers (USA).

Smith quickly took control of the race on the run and steadily gained time on all of her competition. By the time she reached the halfway point of the run her lead was up to a minute on Seymour and she enjoyed a 5:48 lead on Canadian Sue Huse.

The order remained the same at the finish line, with Smith crossing in 4:29:46. Seymour ended up 2:47 down, while Huse managed to gain some time over the last half of the run to finish 4:07 behind in third. Cameto hung tough for fourth, while Meyers finished fifth.

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