Chris Ghiorse won the men’s title in the 2013 BVI Steelman vanquishing young pretenders with a finish time of 2:37:05. Gillian Howe won the ladies field with a time of 2:59:34 and all-girl G.I. Janes (Liezl Van Der Schyf, Lisa Adamson and Kat Crumpler) cleaned up the teams division with a fast time 2:32:01.
A challenging event to begin with, the strong headwind battered the competitors as they completed the 9 laps (40k) of Beef Island, leaving little spare for the run of 20k to finish the race. They had started with a 1.5k swim.
Defending champion Richard Morgan retired due to a previous rib injury, visitor Alex Scheer surprised the field and finished second just over two minutes after Ghiorse. Newcomer and potentially fearsome Guy Williamson put in a very fast run time just under seven minutes faster than Ghiorse who “can’t run” but it wasn’t enough to make up for a slow swim time; he came in third, 55 seconds behind Scheer.
Chris Ghiorse, although 6 minutes off his record-setting time in 2007, has quickly bounced back to form after a long period of slothfulness. Sally Blackmore still holds the women’s record she set in 2011 with a a time 10 minutes faster than Gillian’s… but she’s getting faster…
Kat Crumpler posted the fastest run time of 45:46, Orano Andrews was the fastest cyclist at 1:03:10 and Antony Spencer was first out of the water after 26 minutes and 53 seconds.
Abridged Results
| BVI Steelman 2013 Results (abridged) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mens | |||
| 1 | Chris Ghiorse | 2:37:05 | |
| 2 | Alex Scheer | 2:39:15 | |
| 3 | Guy Williamson | 2:40:10 | |
| 4 | Antony Spencer | 2:41:34 | |
| 5 | Russel Crumpler | 2:42:38 | |
| 6 | Adrian Dale | 2:56:43 | |
| 7 | David Kinkead | 2:58:11 | |
| 8 | Richard Morgan | Retired | |
| 9 | Iain Walker | Retired | |
| Womens | |||
| 1 | Gillian Howe | 2:59:34 | |
| 2 | Jules Potgieter | 3:01:09 | |
| 3 | Kay Reddy | 3:12:32 | |
| Teams | |||
| 1 | G.I. Janes | 2:32:01 | |
| 2 | Doing It Wrong | 2:44:31 | |
| 3 | Government House | 2:56:36 | |
| 4 | Team F.A.B | 3:06:46 | |
| 5 | Splash Dash | 3:03:27 | One bike lap short |
| 6 | Girls Having Fun | 3:09:39 | |