At the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Lahti (Finland) last Sunday, 27 August, professional triathlete Frederic Funk secured the Vice World Champion title. 

At rainy 13 degrees, the men started the middle distance over 1.9 km swimming, 90 km cycling and 21.1 km running. After the first discipline, the Bavarian athlete was in the top 20 with a gap of 26 seconds and in a perfect starting position. On the bike course, he worked his way to the front on his Aerium C:68X and broke away from the field already in the first kilometres - closely followed by a leading group of 6. With the fastest bike time of the day (1:55:13 hours, 47.61 km/h average speed), the 26-year-old finally came into the transition zone in the lead. On the final run he only had to let the future world champion Rico Bogen go and had an exciting duel with the Frenchman Mathis Margirier for 2nd place. Six kilometres before the finish, Funk was able to pull away from his rival and reached the finish line as runner-up after a total time of 3:33:26 hours and a gap of 1:04 minutes. 

The Ironman 70.3 silver medallist was visibly pleased with his performance: "My goal was to do better than last year, so better than fifth place. I tried a few times to get away from the group, but with the strong competitors and the 12-metre rule, it's hard. In the run I honestly surprised myself, I've never run that fast before. I think the course really suits me. To finish second, I can't believe it."