Who's who in the 40-44 Zoo

Well we arrived late last night or actually early this morning at 1am. The 11.5 hour drive become a 13 hour drive with the stops we made and road works on the route where they had stop and go sections. After unpacking and getting everything organized in the flat I got to bed at 2am. The weather forecast for today is 19c with a 65km/h wind. As I am typing it is also raining outside. They forecast 30c with no rain and a 30km/h wind for Sunday, Hope they're right.

Come Sunday there will be 313 male athletes in the 40-44 age group, aiming to finish Ironman South Africa. For some the main goal will be to finish, others will aim for a Kona slot or a podium and others will aim for a better time than before.

Hereby my prediction of the top 10 finishers. There are 51 athletes from abroad in the group of 313 and my predictions are based on South African athletes only as I don't know the overseas athletes. I must just remind everyone this is my prediction and I didn't use some scientifict formula but had a look at previous Ironman and Half Ironman times

Nr1. This must go to Richard Wright. He is just in a class of his own and the only thing that can prevent him from getting the top spot is a mechanical failure or an uber athlete from Sweden or Germany.

Nr2,3,4,5 The remaining two spots on the podium will be decided between the following four athletes as their times during the last few events are so close.

Andrew Payne, Kevin West(from the UK but did compete here previously), Steven Shirley and Russell Nugent.

Nr6. Rick Krogh

Nr7. Guy Cluver

Nr8. Richard de Villiers

Nr9. David Boshoff

Nr10. Kobus de Vos

There are a few dark horses who might get into the Top 10, one being Glen Macnamara who is a real icon and legend in the endurance athlete world. He has more than 20 years of Ultra training in those legs, so watch out.

The others being Marc de Rooy and Alan Henry and there are always the unknown ones you never heard of and they just blast the field apart.

O and then there is also Skillie (Tortoise)