Wendy Ingraham, Eduardo Sturla New Champions at Ironman Brazil
By Staff for Ironmanlive.com on Tue, May 29th 2001 (3:33 PM).

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America's Wendy Ingraham led wire-to-wire, and Argentina's Eduardo Sturla surged from behind to capture the 2001 Ironman Brazil titles Saturday in Florianopolis.

It was the fourth running of Ironman Brazil, but the first running of this event in its new home in Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil. Over 540 athletes gathered on Jurere Beach to take on this new course on a warmer-than-expected day.

Spectators were treated to two different races, as Ingraham, the two-time defending Ironman Austria champion and perennial contender, came out of the swim with a time of in 48:13 and a six-minute lead. She built that margin throughout the bike leg, and had an 11-minute cushion on last year’s winner and popular Brazilian Fernanda Keller as she started her marathon.

Keller closed to within about 4 minutes, but no one would catch Ingraham this day. A tremendous swimmer, she is accustomed to working out front, and a strong bike and solid run held off all challengers, winning in 9:10:02. American Laura Drake finished third, 23 minutes back. New Zealander Tara Lee Marshall came back from a fall during the bike to finish fourth and another American, Heather Matz Jorris rounded out the top five.

It was a different story for the men. Faris Al Sultan from Germany and Alex Rukosuev emerged from the swim together comfortably under the 45-minute mark. Al Sultan left Rukosuev and the rest behind on the mostly flat bike course, opening a gap of about seven minutes at the halfway point.

In the hunt behind him were Rukosuev, Sturla, another German Uwe Widmann, first-time Ironman competitor Galindez, and three-time defending Brazil champion Ken Glah from the USA. The powerful Sturla began moving through the pack until only Al Sultan was ahead of him, and he finally caught and passed the German with about 18 miles remaining.

He took a three-minute lead into the second transition, and padded that to nearly 5 minutes after running a very strong first six miles of the marathon. There would be no more challengers, as the up-and-coming Argentinian continued to extend his lead, crossing the finish line in 8:11:10, a full 10 minutes ahead of Al Sultan.

Glah, now a part of the race ownership of this event, worked his way to third place, two minutes behind Al Sultan. Rukosuev, a Russian-born citizen of the USA living in Orlando, Florida, finished fourth, with the Czech Republic’s Petr Vabrousek finishing fifth. The final results:

10. Silviana Calcagno (ARG) 10:11:13