Guillaume (FRA), Roberts (USA) victorious in 2019 Challenge Taiwan

By Mike Fielder April 30, 2019

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Romain Guillaume of France and Lisa Roberts of the United States both put on spectacular performances at the 2019 Challenge Taiwan in the beautiful city of Taitung. Guillaume finished with a time of 8:30:15, on the strength of his race-best bike split of 4:19:15, which is 8 minutes and 14 seconds faster than anyone else on the field. Roberts put on a show on the marathon leg, stamping the best run split overall at 3:02:22, and finished with a time of 9:10:38.

Michael Raelert of Germany led the way in the swim with a 47:03 split, a 3 minutes and 30 seconds headstart against Guillaume who timed a 50:33 split. They were followed by Per Van Vlerken (DEU), Cameron Brown (NZL) 55:13 and Michael Mckernan (ES) 55:17. Coming out of T1, the Frenchman Guillaume immediately put his head down to outwork everybody on the 180km undulating bike course. Guillaume’s 4:19:15 bike split was the best of the day. Off to the run course, Guillaume has a huge cushion of 14 minutes, allowing him to run a 3rd best 3:13:10 marathon, and still have a 7 minutes and 18 seconds margin of victory over Michael Mckernan. Mckernan had ran the best run split among men at 3:05:45. Per Van Vlerken completed podium by finishing at 8:41:55.

Roberts finished the swim 3rd among the women’s elite with a 1:08:28 split. Carolin Lehrieder of Germany was first out of the water at 56:22, and was followed by Julia Grant of New Zealand 59:28. On the bike course, Lehrieder had the best split among women at 4:50:12 with Roberts keeping pace with a time of 4:51:56. With almost a 14 minute lead over Roberts, a huge buffer awaits Lehrieder. The German’s lead though would dissipate over the course of the 42 km leg. Robert’s scintillating marathon leg of 3:02:22 would be the best of the race, including men, and would win with a safe margin of 2 minutes and 38 seconds. Lehrieder and Grant completed podium spots finishing in 2nd and 3rd respectively.