Linden (NDL), Yamashita (JPN) Top Overall Finishers at 2023 Ironman Philippines

by Pedro Lazo/All images by Jamil Buergo

A day marred with rainshowers brought upon by typhoon Chedeng did not deter the impressive showing of Eric Van Der Linden of the Netherlands and Chigusa Yamashita of Japan as they claim top overall finishers of the 2023 Ironman Philippines.   The scarring heat was totally not a factor to think about today but was replaced by torrential rains and slippery road surfaces.  Linden and Yamashita finished with times of 9:56:20 and 11:30:02 respectively.

Linden exited the water at 6th place, six and a half minutes from the t1 lead.  It did not take long for the Dutch athlete to secure the lead, and he did at the first bike time checkpoint at round the 11th km mark.   Linden rode the whole bike leg in the, finishing with the day’s best bike split at 5:04:21, an impressive 35.49 kph amidst the slippery roads and hills of the SCTEX expressway.

Combined with his 3:44:03 marathon time, it was enough to ward off the charging Michael Kramer of South Africa who ran the race best marathon at 3:31:00.  Kramer took 2nd place with a finish time of 10:00:45. Richard Hall of Morocco completed the 3rd place spot with a finish time of 10:14:18.

Yamashita took his women’s best swim of 1:11:41, and led wire-to-wire to dominate the female category of the race.   Combined with her 2nd best bike split and 2nd best run split, Yamashita’s lead was never threatened and finished with a margin of 14 minutes over countryman Ayaka Suzuki.   Victoria Hill of United Kingdom capped 3rd place with a finish time of 11:47:31.

Top local Filipino finisher honors goes to Jethro Ramos, 5th men’s overall (10:20:34) and Alessandra Paulina Castañeda, 5th women’s overall (12:17:46).