Rasmus Henning finished 4th today at the 70.3 race in Panama after Bevan Docherty, NZL (3:50:13). Lance Armstrong, USA, was leading the race for most of the run after breaking away on the bike with Chris Lieto and finished 42 seconds down in 2nd place. Richie Cunningham came 3rd 2:46 down and Rasmus was 3:25 down in 4th. Bevan Docherty ran a blistering 1:12:50 half marathon to overtake Armstrong on the final kilometers of the run.

Rasmus Henning was 4th out of the water only seconds down on Matt Reed and exited T1 with 40 seconds advantage on the two American uber cyclists, Lieto and Armstrong.

Once they caught up, Rasmus was one of few athletes to hang on to the pace on the bike. Armstrong and Lieto did manage to get away and Henning was out of T2 3 minutes down on the leading Americans. Normally the stronger running Dane would be able to reel the strong cyclists in, but Armstrong had other plans and moved into the lead on the run leaving Lieto to his own destiny. From behind came the light footed Bevan Docherty, a double Olympic medalist with silver in 2004 and bronze in 2008. He is one of the fastest runners on the Olympic distance and started to gain on a faltering Armstrong out in front. Within the last couple of kilometers Docherty caught the cycling legend and won by 42 seconds. Two impressive performances. Rasmus Henning

Rasmus Henning quotes:
"My performance today was ok and I'm satisfied with the result. It's always difficult to predict how the first race of the season will go and I didn't have the optimal days going into the competition with flight delays that meant it took 55 hours to get here so I didn't even see the course before the race. I knew that Lance Armstrong could swim and bike as good as he did but his run impressed and surprised me. When I went out on the run 3 minutes down I thought I would be able to run him down, but instead I only gained 10 seconds on him during the half marathon. I might have underestimated his running skills and that mean that I was one of the first to get Lanced, but hey, I might not be the last!"

"I might have pushed it a little too hard on the bike in my efforts to keep the gap to Bevan and other fast runners, but those are the chances you take in a race. It might have caused me not to run to my best in the end but then again, the way Bevan was running today nobody was going to catch him."

Top-5 - 70.3 Panama:
1) Bevan Docherty, NZL - 3:50:13
2) Lance Armstrong, USA - 3:50:55
3) Richie Cunningham, AUS - 3:52:59
4) Rasmus Henning, DK - 3:53:38
5) Romain Guillaume, FRA - 3:54:44

Rasmus Henning's splits:
1.900 meter swim in 19 minutes - was out of the water in 4th place.
Transition 1 in 1:49.
90 km bike in 2:13:47
Transition 2 in 2:10
21,1 km run in 1:16:51

For all results - click here (Rasmus Henning had bib # 4).

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Best wishes,

Brian Martin Rasmussen
Press Relations Manager for Rasmus Henning

Picture: It was all about Lance today at ironman.com - here is a picture of him at the finish line. Well done by the 40 year old 7 time Tour de France winner.