Five in a row?

Henry Budgett previews this weekend's Kaernten Ironman Austria

That has to be the challenge this weekend at the Kärnten Ironman Austria 2010 - five wins in a row for Marino Vanhoenacker. No pressure there, then... Well, actually, there probably is a little bit of pressure with James Cunnama (pictured with Vanhoenacker), last year's runner-up, and Stephen Bayliss in the mix.

Cunnama certainly caught Vanhoenacker's attention last year, I remember seeing them sitting together just after the finish line and there was more than a little disbelief in both their expressions. Vanhoenacker’s was a 'where the heck did this guy come from?' while Cunama's was definitely a 'that hurt!' Bayliss's season has had a slow start, but he should be firing on all cylinders by now and so is definitely in with a shot at the podium placings.

The rest of the men's field isn't hugely stacked with superstars, but there's certainly a wealth of experienced talent with the likes of Norbert Langbrandtner, Teemu Toivanen, Marcus Fachbach and Massimo Cigana all in the 8:20s, which should make the racing for the minor placings pretty tight - and always provides the prospect for an upset given Austria's penchant for turning in fast times.

One guy who'll be looking for a fast swim will be Christoph Wandratsch, who banged out a 41:26 world record here in 2006 - he's indicated that he's looking to try to repeat the performance.

The women's field sees Bella Bayliss retruning to defend her win last year - I remember the key question for her at the finish line was 'did I break 3 hours for the run?' rather than the fact that she had just turned in another sub-9 performance. There are a couple of key challengers for Bella, who hasn't had her usual stellar start to the year with a DNF in South Africa and a third place in Lanzarote, with Rebecca Preston and Kathrin Paetzold being the obvious candidates while I wouldn't be surprised to see a strong performance from last year's fourth placed Eva Dollinger.

The big question for the day, though, will be whether Vanhoenacker can join an exclusive club – last weekend Marcel Zamora became only the fourth man to win the same Ironman five years in a row, joining Mark Allen, Cameron Brown and Chris McCormack in Ironman history. Can Vanhoenacker join that exclusive club this weekend?

We’ll have live coverage of Sunday’s race including live video starting 10 minutes before race start, text updates, photos and athlete tracking right here on Ironman.com.