Kona, HI -- Monique van der Vorst won the World Championships Ironman in Hawaii on October 10th. Van der Vorst finished after 11 hours, 10 minutes and 14 seconds.   While winning the race she also broke the 11-year-old record by more than two hours, and also finished ahead of all the men in the Handcycle division and the Physically Challenged division.

The atmosphere in Kona was great and help Van der Vorst by her good performance. The weather conditions were not that good. The average temperature was 36°C and often above 40°C, there was also a lot of wind on the last 85 km of the bike course.

The Ironman started at 7 a.m. with a 3.9 km (2.4 mile) swim. Van der Vorst took 1h 14m 53s for her swim. She came in 2nd position out of the water (Handcycle division). After a short transition she got on the handcycle for an 180.2 km (112 miles) bike ride. The course was a hilly highway, through the desert with a lot of wind. Van der Vorst passed the first man 5 km after the start and wouldn't give her leading position away anymore. The average speed of Van der Vorst was around 28km/h during the first half of the course. But after the turnaround till the finish, there was an unexpected hard head wind, which slowed Van der Vorst down. Especially the last 30 km were tough, but Van der Vorst kept thinking positive and finished the bike course in 7h 04m 18s. Only a marathon in the racing chair was left. The course was hilly again and there were a lot of runners on the narrow course. Van der Vorst felt really good and wasn’t really tired. The fact that she was leading the mens race by more then 40 minutes gave her a lot of spirit. Van der Vorst needed 2h 41m 11s over the marathon and finished in a total time of 11h 10m 14s.

More information about the World Championships Ironman.