Belgian Bert Jammaer took a brave wire-to-wire route to his first ever Ironman victory, while Scotswoman Bella Comerford came back just five weeks after her Ironman South Africa win to earn her seventh career Ironman triumph Saturday at Lanzarote.

Comerford patiently overcame a six and a half minute deficit to Tara Norton after the Canadian’s sizzling 5:41:26 bike on the brutal Lanzarote combination of hills, wind and heat, taking the lead at the 9-mile mark of the marathon.

By the time the 29-year old had finished her race-best 3:17:57 run, Comerford happily didn’t have to reprise the final 200 meter sprint to the line she uncorked to win at Port Elizabeth last month. Instead, Comerford hit the line in 10:02:27 with 9 minutes and 40 seconds to spare over the Netherlands’ Heleen Bij de Vaate, who overtook Norton for second place just two miles from the finish.

“I’m over the moon to have won today,” Comerford told Ironmanlive.com. When asked why she didn’t panic when she left T2 so far behind, she replied. “It’s stupid to worry about the girl ahead being the stronger rider. It’s the job I train to do. I just told myself ‘Be patient, keep calm and keep pushing.’”

Jammaer, a 28-year-old Antwerp fireman by profession whose best previous triathlon performance was a third place at the 2002 Nice long course championship, started out front with a race-best 49:38 swim and held off two-time Lanzarote champion Ain-Alar Juhanson’s race-best bike to keep a three-minute lead starting the run.

Jammaer, last year’s fourth place Lanzarote finisher, then nailed down the win with a sixth-best 3:06:31 marathon to hit the line in 8:59:37. Jammaer’s margin of victory was 8 minutes and 38 seconds ahead of the fast-closing runner-up Teemu Toivanen of Finland, whose race-best 2:59:34 run edged out a fading Juhanson in the final mile for second place by a margin of 21 seconds.

Jammaer also upheld a Lanzarote tradition in which the Ironman winner comes into the race after winning the local Olympic distance Volcano Triathlon two weeks prior.

Before the race, Jammaer told Ironmanlive.com he doubted that he could beat two-time champion Juhanson, the tall, hard-riding giant from Estonia who had won this race in 2005 and 2006. Jammaer’s race plan was to hold his lead and hold off Juhanson as long as possible. But strong tailwinds for the second half of the toughest bike on the Ironman circuit enabled Jammaer to average 50km for a long stretch coming home and keep a confidence-boosting lead through the first 20km loop of the run.

“The second 20km was hard, very hard,” Jammaer told IronmanLive.com. He added that he feared that he was fading on the second loop and expected to hear his giant 6-foot 4-inch rival’s footsteps at any moment in the final stretch.

Happily for the Belgian, Juhanson was fading even faster. The Estonian’s 3:13:17 opened the door for a big come-from-behind rally to second place by Finland’s Teemu Toivanen, who was 12 minutes behind Juhanson after a dismal 5:15:55 bike.

Both winning times were far off the race records set in 1995 -- Paula Newby-Fraser’s standard of 9:24:39 and Thomas Hellriegel’s 8:35:57. But slight course changes, repaving and wildly variable weather, make this rugged Canary Island test more for the heart than the stats.

Ironman Lanzarote Canarias
Lanzarote, Canary Islands
May 24, 2008
S 2.4 mi/ B 112 mi/ R 26.2 mi’

Results

Elite men

1. Bert Jammaer (Bel) 8:59:38
2. Teemu Toivanen (Fin) 9:08:15
3. Ain-Alar Juhanson (Est) 9:08:37
4. Frederick Kohl (Ger) 9:09:50
5. Gregorio Caceres Morales (Esp) 9:11:32
6. Markus Ressler (Aut) 9:12:30
7. Martin Matula (Cze) 9:12:55
8. Dirk Van Gossum (Bel) 9:17:08
9. Teemu Lemmettyla (Fin) 9:18:51
10. Alex Taubert (Ger) 9:20:53

Elite women

1. Bella Comerford (Sco) 10:02:27
2. Heleen Bij de Vaate (Ned) 10:12:07
3. Tara Norton (Can) 10:13:16
4. Charlotte Kolters (Den) 10:16:30
5. Virginia Berasategui Luna (ESP) 10:22:33
6. Paolina Allan (Sco) 10:28:06
7. Sophie Goos (Bel) 10:30:40
8. Heidi Jesberger (Ger) 10:42:09
9. Emily Finanger (USA) 10:49:25
10. Ann Banke (Den) 10:56:55