Taccone and Frades victorious at IRONMAN 70.3 Cozumel

With 2023 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship slots on the line, the racing down in Mexico was fast and furious this weekend, as Luciano Taccone of Argentina and Gurutze Frades of Spain were cheered on by cries of “vamos!” along the course in Cozumel to take the wins in the men and women’s pro races respectively.

Men – Taccone leads Argentine 1-2

On what looked like another spectacular Sunday on the Yucatan Peninsula, Taccone made up some serious ground on the swim to take a comfortable win in Cozumel.

With its notorious current lending itself to some incredibly fast swim times, Cozumel is renowned as a lightening quick course, with the 2022 men’s pro field making the most of the great swimming conditions in this weekend’s edition.

Marc Dubrick of the US led out a group of four men in a lightening quick sub 19 minute swim, with a chase pack of five, including Taccone, 75 seconds adrift but still coming out of the water after taking a shade over 20 minutes to complete the first discipline.

Onto the bike, it was home athlete Joaquin Pereda who led the charge up until 55km, where he was overtaken by Taccone who rode right over the lead pack of five, with Kevin Jervis also bridging up. Whilst Taccone worked hard to break up the lead group, he had his work cut out, with his efforts proving too much for most, but not fellow countryman Flavio Morandini.

Onto the run, Taccone had a slim lead of around half a minute over Morandini, with the chase pack of three Americans, Jervis, Dubrick and Elliot Bach over a minute behind the leader. By halfway, Taccone had really started to apply the pressure, and extended his lead considerably over the final 10km to take the tape with a five minute buffer to Morandini. The second Argentinian held tough to take second, as Mark Dubrick was rewarded with third after a solid performance across the board.

Women – Frades takes comfortable win.

Spain’s Gurutze Frades ran her way to a convincing victory in Cozumel this weekend, with home favourite Palmira Alvarez also impressing as she made up an eight minute deficit on the swim to take home third place on the Mexican coast.

With only five women in the professional field, gaps started to appear very early on. Romina Palacio and Amy Cymerman lead out of the water togethor after solid swims, with Anne Basso and eventual winner Frades over 90 seconds adrift in T1.

On to the bike, it was American Cymerman who took the race by the scruff of the neck, as she opened up a gap on her nearest competitors from the start, with the rest of the field left trying to limit the damage done by. Cymerman had over two minutes on Frades and 9 minutes on Alvarez in T2, as both women battled solo as they tried to work their way into podium positions.

Cymerman initially extended her lead over Frades over the first 5km of the run, but the Spaniard quickly started making headway after halfway, with the gap to the front shrinking from over two minutes at 10km to a little over five seconds at 16km. Cymerman, after relinquishing the lead, struggled home, bleeding more than five minutes over the last 5km to Frades, who ran faster than the majority of the men’s field with an epic final 10km to take the win. Cymerman was rewarded for her braveness on the bike with second, before Alvarez gave the home crowd something to cheer for as she took third.