PUERTO PRINCESA CITY — Satar Salem delivered a performance for the ages to capture the men’s overall individual crown, edging Chinese Junyu Cao by the slimmest of margins — four hours, 22 minutes and 25 seconds to 04:23:13 — while Leyann Ramo completed Tri SND Barracuda’s domination of individual honors by ruling the women’s side in the IRONMAN 70.3 Puerto Princesa here Sunday.
Coming in second to Dutch Eric van der Linden after the swim but almost a minute ahead of Cao, Salem remained in that spot after the bike as Linden stayed in control.
But the 2022 Sun Life 5150 champ in Bohol poured it all out in the run, wearing down Linden while holding off Cao’s stretch-run fightback.
Salem, who toiled for the whole season to prime up and get a crack at this crown, clocked 29:08 in swim., 02:22:31 in bike before winding up with 01:26:40 in run as he timed 04:22:25 and bested last year winner John Alcala’s clocking of 04:32:20 in the grueling 1.9-kilometers swim, 90-km bike, and 21.1-km run race held under overcast skies.
Cao timed 30:04 in swim, gained on Salem in bike in 02:21:40 but fell short of his bid in the closing leg with a 01:26:39 clocking for an overall time of 04:23:13.
“I feel very happy to win this race. I’ve been eyeing on this for the whole year and now it came true. With all the hard training, it finally bore fruit,” said Salem, who strategically reserved his strength during the swim and bike legs then let it all out in the closing stage.
“I made sure I didn’t make the same mistakes that I did last year to always shift to the higher gear. Now, I made sure to reserve some strength for the push for the run part,” said the Lanao del Norte ace, who struggled to finish 17th last year.
“The most challenging part was the run because Cao was really close behind and was also determined to win,” said Salem. “The last two kilometers were crucial because Cao was also pressing hard to catch up and I can feel him behind. But I pushed the hardest.”
Linden, who topped the punishing full IRONMAN Philippines in Subic last June, settled for third in 04:24:41 with leg times of 28:52 (swim), 02:22:30 (bike) and 01:28:48 (run).
Alcala, meanwhile, failed to recover from a 35:35 swim start and ended up fifth behind Mervin Santiago in 04:29:25 with times of 02:23:51 in bike and 01:26:34 in run. Santiago clocked 04:28:40 with leg times of 33:00 in swim, 02:19:50 in bike and 01:31:00 in run.
