Stephen and Bella Bayliss dominated the International Marathon Lanzarote 2012, winning both the men’s and ladies categories.
Eight hundred participants including 22 nationalities took part in this edition of the race which stretched out along the coastline from Costa Teguise to Puerto del Carmen in a change from previous routes. There were some really exciting finishes including the men’s half marathon and wheelchair marathon with a second or less between runners. You couldn’t for a moment have imagined that Sands Beach Resort haven’t organised an event the magnitude of the Lanzarote Marathon before, the organisation throughout was simply superb. Staff, volunteers and officials worked seamlessly together to produce a magnificent race, comprising of three distances and four different start times.
The stars of this year’s marathon in Lanzarote were British runners Stephen Bayliss (02:43:22) and his wife Bella (03:00:53) also known as The Iron Couple, who were in the lead from the beginning. Stephen had a duel with Marco Diehl from Germany who won the event last year, he finished second (02:44:41), third in the men’s race was Tomi Halme (02:46:13). Bella set the pace for the women finishing just 17 minutes behind husband Stephen with a very comfortable gap to Susan Hagevoort (03:26:48) and Yvonne Schäfer (03:34:55) who finished second and third respectively.
Victor del Corral (01:14:05) took the victory in the half marathon, it was so close as Iñigo González was only a second behind (01:14:06) and Nicholas Ward (01:16:42) third. Aroa Merino (01:26:36) was very happy to win for a second year running but felt the toughness of the course (her time for 2011 was 01:20:50), Geraldine Oshea (01:29:11) took second and Pili Ramos (01:32:14) finished third.
Lanzarote Olympian, José Carlos Hernández (00:31:10) won the men’s 10 km distance, shaving 1 minute 47 seconds off his winning time from last year. Daire Bermingham (00:32:30) was second and Javier Garcia (00:32:49) third. For the women, it was Sofie Goos (00:38:11) first across the line, followed by Tamara Sanfabio (00:39:02) in second and Azucena Lara (00:44:01) in third to complete the podium.
The wheelchair finish was absolutely spectacular, three paralympians made a final sprint for the line to the delight of the spectators, all recording a time of 01:42:37 it was Roger Puigbò who beat Denis Lemeunier and Jordi Madera by a fraction of a second. Jane Eagan (03:06:45) was the only female participant after Marieke Vervoort who was in Lanzarote for the race had to withdraw last minute, to travel back to Belgium to receive a sporting award.
Congratulations also to Tania, Fiona and Jo, three local mums who decided to run this year’s marathon to raise money for Mind, the mental health charity. These ladies have been training really hard to increase their fitness to be ready for the event. Although the day didn’t go according to plan, all three women still crossed the line to receive their Lanzarote Marathon medals, raising well over two thousand pounds for Mind. More information: Mums on the run for Mind.
If you missed the marathon this year, the date’s been announced as 8th December 2013, it’s definitely a race to include in your calendar for next year.
We’ve took hundreds of photos over the weekend at this event, you can find them all in our Facebook albums: Lanzarote Marathon& Kid’s races. You can download the Lanzarote Marathon 2012 results below.