Bella Comerford Comes 3rd Topless on Ironman South Africa Safari
Wednesday, 21st March 2007
This past Sunday, Scotland's Bella Comerford kicked off her 2007 medal haul with a bronze at the SpecSavers Ironman South Africa.
The women's race was won by multiple-time Ironman World Champion Natasha Badmann twenty minutes clear of Italy's Edith Niederfriniger in second and Bella only one minute and thirty-nine seconds behind in 3rd.
Though Badmann will be Bella's main competition at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii this October the current ITU long course world champion was extremely happy with her early season form.
She comments; "This is just the beginning of my season and was my second Ironman in as many weeks. I have a lot more training and racing to do prior to Hawaii. Come race day in Kona, I am confident I will be ready to go for gold."
The only hitch to this past weekend of note was the fact that Comerford had expected to receive her custom 2007 race kit by courier to her hotel prior to the race to wear on the day. However thanks to British Airways failing to load a container full of packages destined for South Africa, it sat at the airport for 48hrs and did not arrive in time.
Comerford's next race is the Strongman Triathlon is Japan at which Stephen Bayliss her partner and the other half of Britain's Iron Couple will be joining her on the start line. Both Bayliss and Comerford will be in their new race kit at this time, thanks to parental delivery being made courtesy of Stephen's parents who are visiting him this week.
Prior to the start line in Japan, Bayliss is looking to build on his 6th place at Ironman Malaysia at this coming weekends ITU Mekong River Triathlon. This weekend's race sees Bayliss's first return to Olympic Distance racing in twelve months.
Source: Press Release