A strong field of British women turned up today (14 June) for the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Staffs, including housemates Lucy Gossage and Susie Cheetham, Alice Hector, Georgie Rutherford and Jacqui Slack.
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Rutherford was first out of the water, ahead of Xterra warrior Slack and New Zealand’s Sam Warriner, with Hector and Gossage not far behind.
Georgie Rutherford leads out of the swim; she eventually finished fourth woman
Once on the bike Gossage pushed hard and took the lead by the 37km mark, leading all the way to T2 with a bike split of 2:29:54, and arriving around 7mins ahead of Cheetham and Rutherford. Warriner left transition in fourth place around 12mins behind Gossage, with Hector in fifth.
Lucy Gossage started her lonely run after a bike split of 02:29:54! #IM703Staffs
— IronmanLIVE.com (@IRONMANLive) June 14, 2015
By the halfway point of the run Gossage had built a 10min lead over Cheetham and Rutherford, and that lead grew to 12mins by the time she closed in on the finishing chute, crossing the line in 4:31:09, followed exactly 10mins later by Cheetham, with Warriner taking third place.