Kona Press Conference

Oops, I guess that link doesn't work. It's here under the stuff for Thursday if you want to watch it:

http://ironman.com/ 

From ST: 

IN A CLASS OF HER OWN

Chrissie Wellington 1-1

Last year, Wellington was a stealth rookie, completely off the radar, the darkest of dark horses, the biggest smoky of all time, to use coach Brett Sutton’s Aussie lexicon. Even if she had been combined, as in horse racing, with the field, her odds were no better than 35-1. A year later, the biggest upset in Ironman history would be if she got beat. How did this cataclysm to the established Ironman order occur?

Obviously, Coach Brett Sutton and his old school training ways that took more from his background in greyhound and horse racing than from power meters and heart rate monitors, had a lot to do with it. In case anyone thought it was a singular miracle because Wellington was simply a genetic freak, first look at her Team TBB teammates in 2008. Belinda Granger won three Ironman races at age 37. Duathlon champion Erika Csomor got a swim to back up her phenomenal bike and run and won Ironman Malaysia and Ironman Arizona. Stephen Bayliss took breakthrough wins at Ironman South Africa and Ironman UK. Hilary Biscay won her first Ironman after five runner-up finishes.

Now look what Wellington did in her sophomore year. A swift 9:03:55 win at Australia, outdueling Kate Major. A big win at Frankfurt in under 9 hours. A smashing win at rugged, hilly Alpe d’Huez, where she finished a minute behind the first man. A duel with Yvonne Van Vlerken after the Dutch star broke Paula Newby-Fraser’s Ironman distance record with an 8:45 at Quelle Challenge Roth. At the ITU long distance Worlds in Van Vlerken’s home country Holland, Wellington smashed the Dutch upstart by 25 minutes. To top it off, Wellington won Timberman 70.3 by a country mile and finished just 20 minutes back of the top man.

The scary thought is that Wellington, with her debut sub-3 hour Kona marathon, is still improving. Could she run faster this year? “Definitely,” she said. “Absolutely.”