This year, 23 male professional Ironman athletes crossed the finish line, the second-highest in event history.
The inaugural year, 2011, there were 24 who finished followed by 16 and 19 the last two years.
Sixteen (16) male pros went under nine hours - a new record.
Thirteen did each of the first two years while nine (9) -- an all-time low -- did a year ago.
Bevan Docherty's winning time of eight hours, nine minutes and 37 seconds (8:09:37) was the second fastest in event history - one spot behind Eneko Llanos' win of 8:08:20 in the inaugural year. Llanos, Timothy O'Donnell (second in 2011) and Docherty are the only three to break 8:10 at Ironman Texas.
Brandon Marsh's leading swim time on Saturday of 46 minutes, 38 seconds (46:38) was the second fastest behind John Flanagan's inaugural year (2011) time of 46 minutes, 20 seconds.
Marsh led the swim two years ago at Ironman Texas in 48:48.
Docherty was sixth after the swim. It is the highest place an eventual winner has come out of the water at Ironman Texas as Jordan Rapp (2012), Eneko Llanos (2011) and Paul Amey (2013) were in ninth, tenth and twentieth places, respectively.
With his third place finish, Justin Daerr is the only male professional to finish Ironman Texas all four years and did so with a personal event best of 8:17:29.
Four male pros - Docherty, Matthew Russell, Daerr and Rapp - finished under 8:20, which doubled the former all-time total of sub-8:20s previously accomplished by Llanos, O'Donnell, Rapp and Luke Bell.
Russell, Jozsek Major and Balazs Csoke became the only other Ironman athletes to post their third Ironman Texas finish as a professional. Csoke and Russell had their best times on this course this year, while all three have started the race all four years. (Csoke did not finish in 2011 while Major and Russell both did not complete the event last year.)
Arlington's Patrick Schuster has finished all four Ironman Texas, with the lowest combined time; however, the first two years (2011-2012), he competed as an age-grouper.
With his leading bike split of 4:19:11, Rapp is only the third pro to ever go sub-4:20 on the bike at Ironman Texas joining all-time best Chris Lieto, who went 4:15:14 in 2011, and Switerland's Mathias Hecht's 4:18:17 two years ago.
Last year, Paul Amey proved to be the only pro - of the four editions of Ironman Texas - to ever win off of having the best time on the bike.
Jordan Rapp's former event-best marathon time of 2:46:56 was blown away by Storm Lake, Iowa's Matt Hanson, who blistered the course with a 2:41:38 time that left him sixth overall.
Hanson and Doherty were the only two go under 2:50, joining Rapp and Daerr from 2012 and Llanos and O'Donnell the year before.
Hanson is the only age-grouper ever to break three hours in the marathon, doing so in 2:59:40 last year, and the 2:41:38 this year ensured that only two of the four champions have had the best time in their division.
Justin Daerr is the only professional that has run under three hours in the marathon on three different occasions (2011, 2012 and 2014).
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