Note: If you’ve been trying to get on to Ironmanilive to watch the live race coverage coming from the Ironman World Championships in Kona, you may be having trouble getting a connection. We’ve heard that power problems earlier in the day knocked out the Internet connections to get the feeds out from the island. It has looked to me that the heavy traffic load may be causing problems, as one of my two computers is getting on and not the other.

Here’s an update so far as of 12:30PST:

- Weather – it’s a clear, but windless day in Hawaii. Temperatures are forecasted to reach about 84 degrees today. This should make for quick conditions.

- Athlete Health – a number of the top athletes caught a flu bug in the last couple of weeks, including Faris Al Sutan who pulled out of the race. In addition, Michellie Jones reportedly has had ear troubles and both Normann Stadler and Natasha Badmann have pulled to the side of the course in the first 30 miles of the bike to deal with medical or equipment issues. Stadler reportedly threw up and then returned to his bike to give chase.

Leaders early
Through about 36 miles of the bike, in the men’s race, Chris Lieto (#9) continues to hammer away on the rest of the field with a gap to a chase pack of 3:30. The chase pack contains: Tom Evans (#73), Chris McCormack (#2), Francisco Pontano (#21), Luc Van Lierde (#16), Luke Bell (#7), Eneko Llanos (#5), Bert Jammaer (#48), Mathias Hecht (#35), and Craig Alexander (#17).

In the women’s race, Leanda Cave was leading over Dede Greisbauer by 54 seconds, followed by: Michellie Jones (#52) at 2:40, Katja Schumacher (#65) at 2:42, Belinda Granger (#58) at 2:44, Rebekah Keat (#101) at 2:46, Joanna Lawn (#57) at 2:48, Rebekah Keat (#101) at 2:46, Joanna Lawn (#57) at 2:48, Melissa Ashton (#59) at 2:50.

It is not clear what has happened to last year’s top American Desiree Ficker.

For more information on broadcast coverage, click here.

For update number 2, click here.

Coach Joe English, Portland Oregon