Race Coverage

Big Wins for Sander & Mercer....

Saturday, 19 June 2010 11:10

The same three guys who made the podium at last year's Lake Minnetonka Triathlon did likewise at today's version--the 7th--of this revered event. But they didn't finish in the same order. Four-time LMT champ Brett Lovass, winner in '09, took 2nd this time around and last season's runner-up, Josh Blankenheim took 3rd. Reaching the top step was Steve Sander, who is probably not related to the very late Colonel Sanders (image). Stevie (he hates when people call him Stevie!) turned in arguably the finest performance of his young career. (Today's field was far stronger than the one he faced in his last win, which was at Lakes Country last August.) His margin of victory was a brawny 49 seconds. Lovaas's 2nd place time would have been 10-15 seconds-or-so faster had he not botched two "flying mount" attempts, wrestled with a uncooperative pedal and had...

to stop to pick up a kamikaze water bottle. With a child in each arm, he recounted the episodes with a grin after the awards presentation. Then, as luck would have it, he performed an emergency diaper change on one of the aforementioned children.