Handful in deep Ironman field figure to challenge Gollnick

If familiarity means anything, Heather Gollnick would be the odds-on favorite to capture the Ford Ironman Coeur d’Alene women’s professional title today.

Gollnick is the lone returning top placer in the previous two Ironman events at Coeur d’Alene. She won the inaugural race in 2003 and followed up with a runner-up finish in 2004. The event was a men’s pro only race last year.

Coeur d’Alene may be Gollnick’s favorite Ironman stop.

“I’d like to see it become the permanent site of the U.S. Championship,” Gollnick said.

Gollnick, 36, of Bradenton, Fla., won in a time of 9 hours, 41 minutes and 48 seconds in 2003. She expects the winning time to be much faster today as athletes tackle the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run.

“It’s a much more competitive field than the first two years,” Gollnick said. “It will make it a great day (today).”

Perhaps the queen of Ironman female pro racing is Paula Newby-Fraser. Retired from competitive pro racing, she’s back at the Coeur d’Alene event for a fourth straight year assisting in television coverage.

Newby-Fraser doesn’t see a clear-cut favorite. She listed about six contenders, including Gollnick.

“That’s what is so interesting and great about this race is there’s no clear-cut favorite,” Newby-Fraser said. “There are easily at least six who could step up and win.”

The women who figure to challenge, if not beat Gollnick, are Kate Major, Kim Loeffler, Katja Schumacher, Joanna Zeiger and Dede Griesbauer.

“We have the very top of the U.S. women pros here,” Newby-Fraser said. “Outside of Hawaii (the world championship race), this is the deepest women’s field.”

Major, 28, of San Diego by way of Australia, took third at the Ironman World Championships last fall in Hawaii. Loeffler, 33, of Cochester, Vt., is coming off a third-place finish at the Wildflower Half Ironman last month.

The pros will chase a $50,000 prize purse. The winner takes home $14,000, with second collecting $9,000 and third $7,500. The top 10 finishers take home money.

The pros will hit the water at 6:25 a.m. at City Park. The age-group competitors begin at 7.

Pros are coaches, too

Many of the female pros also do some coaching on the side.

Gollnick, for example, has 14 clients, many of whom she instructs via the Internet. Three of her students will be in the field today, including a first-time Ironman competitor, Cindy Vopel of Green Bay, Wis.

“She’s done some smaller-scale triathlons, but this will be her first Ironman,” said Gollnick, who met Vopel in person at a camp Gollnick put on in February in Florida.

Subtle hills

The Coeur d’Alene course, by and large, is considered relatively flat to most Ironman layouts.

But the stretches of ascent on the second major leg of the 112-mile bike – the stretch along Riverview Drive – reminded Gollnick that the hills here might as well be mountains compared to her home in Florida.

“I came out here early to get acclimated to the weather,” said Gollnick, who arrived the Sunday before the event. “Then I got out on the bike and the course seemed a little hillier than I remembered before.”

So how flat is the surrounding area where Gollnick lives?

“Pancake,” Gollnick said.

So after a trial loop on her bike, Gollnick said she was ready to go.

“I felt really, really strong on the hills,” she said.