Race Coverage

Matt Did Good....

Sunday, 12 July 2015 06:10

Photo - Matt Payne doing a selfie with his mom.

14th MPLS TRIATHLON - The Men - Wisconsin's Mark Harms registered the day before the race. On paper, that meant that Matt Payne was no longer the clear-cut favorite to win the men's competition. His status would have to be downgraded to "prohibitive" favorite.

Why?

Because Mark was runner-up at Nationals last year and is a six-time AG national champion. He's been on the Elite Amateur podium at Mpls before and won the race back in 2007. The guy is freakin' good.

But can anyone beat Payne this year? Good question. The dude was, after all, 5-for-5 coming into Saturday's race. If Mark couldn't take him down, then maybe no one, even reigning national champ Steve Mantell, who won the 2014 edition of the Minneapolis Tri, can. We suspect that all three of these guys will face off at Nationals next month. We can't wait for that one....

Matt beat Mark out of the water by 30 seconds, then outsplit him on the bike by 1:33. He even outran Harms, albeit by only 11 seconds. In the end, Payne had turned in the 3rd fastest amateur time in race history (1:56:56) and managed to beat MH by 2:23.

We wish that Nationals was next week 'cuz M-Pain is totally ready to win.

Interestingly, UM's Brian Gorman crushed the field in the Collegiate competition and finished in a time (1:59:19) that matched Harms'. Very impressive!

Places 4th and 5th were earned by Kris Spoth and Sean Cooley, who is justifiably pleased with his race, his first of the season. Sean's absense is explained by the facts that he has been super busy lately doing doctor stuff and being head-over-heels in love.

The fastest master was Thad Ingersoll, 45, who placed 6th. Thad finished 2nd in the "2014 Nicest Guy in the World" competition behind a guy, a saint actually, from some place north of the Arctic Circle.

And in the companion sprint course race, Michael Weissenborn ran down Trinona Sprint winner Matt Radniecki to win by two seconds. Exciting stuff. RESULTS

ED. Coverage of Minneapolis Tri's women's race will post tomorrow. FYI, at 9:47 AM we finally cleaned up the typos in this post. There were about a zillion of them. Apologies to those who read this story before it was edited.