RadStrong Coaching, India’s premier coaching company started by India’s only 31 times full Iron Man finisher, Dr. Kaustubh Radkar has created history by having 26 athletes finish full Iron Man and 7 athletes finish half IronMan, the most for any race from Pune!
Ironman was held on 6th August in Tallinn, Estonia. The water at lake Harku was 22 degrees on the warmer side this time, but conditions inside were extremely choppy making it difficult for athletes to see especially while coming to finish swimming. Post swim, the game changed for athletes as there was heavy rainfall for 4 hours on the cycle leg. Adding to that was head-cross winds with avg of 25 kmph with some extreme wind gusts of 40 kmph as well.
Once the rain stopped in the afternoon, the sun came out and the temperature went up to 25 degrees, so athletes had another challenge on the run part.
The race this time was only for amateurs, NO professionals were part of the race. Of the 26 athletes The RadStrong Pune team had 2 women finishers and 24 male for the full ironman. For the half IronMan, two out of seven athletes were females.
The youngest athletes were Yohaan Kudtarkar at 22, and Rituja Updikar at 24 who passed the test with flying colours. There was also a husband-wife team where Noopur Barve did the half IronMan, and her husband Mihir Barve completed the full IronMan. Sampat Harpale was the oldest athlete at 64 years, but most importantly Ashutosh Soman who is 100% hearing impaired and still overcame his disability to finish in 13 hrs.
The RadStrong Coaching Tallinn team was invited by Honourable Indian Ambassador to Estonia Shri Ajaneesh Kumar ji to India House. The Hon Ambassador had an interaction with the team over dinner about training, professional lives and how the IronMan journey started.
This year’s team consisted of successful business owners from Pune like Shailesh Ranka, Kunal Mhaske, etc and working professionals which made coaching very challenging as per Dr. Radkar, who himself finished his 31st Ironman in Tallinn.
