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Brent McMahon of Victoria, ranked No. 3 in Saturday鈥檚 2016 Ironman Hawaii world championship, faded to 30th place.
McMahon hoped to become the first Canadian to win at Kona since three-time champion Peter Reid of Victoria in 2003. McMahon, ninth last year, was in the top 10 with 12 kilometres remaining in the final run despite taking a five-minute penalty in the bike portion. But then his body seized.
鈥淎 bad day [bike penalty] turned into a terrible day,鈥� said McMahon, a two-time Olympian. 鈥淢y guts turned on me and I was cramping and had to stop for five minutes. I vomited quite a while. Then it was a matter of walking and jogging to the finish.鈥�
An Ironman consists of a 3.8K open-water swim, 180.2K bike race and 42.2K run.
McMahon received a lot of attention heading into the event after clocking the third-fastest Ironman of all-time (7:46:10) in May at Brazil.
But it was Jan Frodeno, who shunted Simon Whitfield of Victoria to the silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, who led a German sweep of the podium Saturday to win his second consecutive Ironman Hawaii world championship in 8:06:30.
鈥淚 wanted to hit the podium,鈥� said McMahon, who finished in 8:45:45. 鈥淏ut it was bad luck. It happens.鈥�
