Swen Sundberg got 8th at Ironman 70.3 New Orleans (18.04.2010)

The last test for Swen before Ironman St. George on May 1st went quite well with a top 10 result in a first-class field.

But the race was not an easy one for Swen. On the swim course he lost the first group and so the orientation in the rough swell got pretty difficult for him. So he had to stop even shortly to advice with some other competitors where to swim to because they could not see any direction buoys.

So he got out of the water 4 minutes behind the leading group. Fortunately he found his rhythm on the bike quite fast. After the travel exertions and the lost luggage, which arrived 2 days late, he had not the liveliness to push as hard as normal. “I felt tired after the long journey and after the tough training in the last weeks”, Swen said just after the race. The road conditions made the race even more difficult. That was caused by the hurricane, which destroyed the landscape in 2005. So Swen was quite carefully to avoid the risk of any crash. Though he could improve his result on the bike from the 16^th to the 11^th position.

On the final run he showed that his performance is improving rapidly. With the 4^th fastest run split of the day (1:17:20) he finished 8^th in the end. A successful catch-up race! The winner Andy Potts was the only one who was clearly faster. He finished 4 minutes ahead of all other competitors.

Swen summed up the race in the following way: “The race was a good test for the Ironman St. George in Utah. It is a pity that the swim did not work that well but with the rest of the race I am happy.”

In Utah Swen has to reach a place under the first 4 to get a qualification slot for Hawaii and to do the next races as planned.