Reed, Steffen leave Subic as champions again

SUBIC—Tim Reed added another title to his impressive collection on Sunday after capturing the gold medal in the men’s division of the Century Tuna Ironman 70.3 Subic Bay presented by Big Boss here.

This is the Australian’s 23rd title in the Ironman 70.3 and the second this year, but his latest prize didn’t come without a lot of hard work.

Reed had to catch up in the bike leg after finishing fourth in the swim. He then turned up the heat in the run to clock four hours, four minutes and 33 seconds 1.9km swim-90km bike, 21km run event and foil fellow Aussie Tim Van Berkel (04:08:36.0) and Nicholas Baldwin (04:09:06.0) of Seychelles.

Another popular bet, Caroline Steffen of Switzerland, triumphed in the women’s side, clocking 4:29:14 to beat Dimity Lee Duke of Australia (04:42:58) and Laura Wood (04:46:22) of New Zealand.

“I love coming back here because I always race here,” said Reed, who won the 2017 Ironman 70.3 Subic Bay. “More importantly, my form’s coming back so it’s nice to be racing well again.”

“It’s great to come back, I had a win [here] a couple of years back and the last time I was here I was in second place so it really feels good to win,” Steffen said.

Steffen, though, had to push harder at the start of the race after trailing Guam’s Manan Iijima in the swim leg.

Iijima was the first out of the water and finished the swim leg at 21:01, 53 seconds faster than Steffen’s time.