Australia’s Clayton Fettell and Carrie Lester were crowned Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie champions here in Port Macquarie on Sunday.
In ideal racing conditions, eight hundred professional and age group athletes toed the start line in Hastings River Drive and set out on a challenging course that produced fantastic racing.
Fettell’s emphatic wire-to-wire win was the maiden Ironman 70.3 title for the talented athlete from the NSW North Coast. Fettell established more than a five-minute lead coming into to T2 after posting an impressive bike split of 2:11:12 over what is regarding as an extremely challenging bike course. In a quality field featuring Luke Bell and Luke McKenzie, Fettell held off challenges from Tim Reed and Chris Kemp towards the latter stages of the run and recorded the finest win of his career in a time of 3:53:29.
Local favourites Tim Berkel and Mitch Robins were not a factor, with Berkel withdrawing prior to the race start due to illness and Robins experiencing an early puncture on the bike, which discounted him from the win early in the day.
Port Macquarie’s Adam Holborrow flew the flag for local pro athletes, with a top ten finish.
In the women’s race, Carrie Lester was on familiar ground and took full advantage of her experience in Port Macquarie. Lester, the champion at Urban Hotel Group Ironman Australia in 2010 in Port Macquarie, outlasted the New Zealand pairing of Samantha Warriner and Joanna Lawn to record her first Ironman 70.3 title in Port Macquarie.
Lester’s calculated race plan saw her come off the bike within range of Warriner and Sydney’s Lisa Marangon who set the pace on the swim and bike.
Lester would reach the front of the field on the second lap of the undulating run course and record a 1:29:27 run split and take the win in 4:28:25.
Age group divisions were hotly contested, with each age group winner being crowned Ironman 70.3 Australian Age Group Champion. Newcastle’s Finbar Crennan was the first age group athlete across the line in an overall time of 4:13:17.
Incredibly, Crennan competed in the male 40-44 age group and finished in ninth place overall. Crennan, along with each age group winner, will have the opportunity to enter the sold-out Urban Hotel Group Ironman Australia event to be held in Port Macquarie on May 6, 2012.
Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie is one of fifty-two Ironman 70.3 events held worldwide.
Professional athletes racing at Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie competed for a professional prize purse of USD $15,000, while age groupers competed for the title of Ironman 70.3 Australian Age Group Champion, prized spots into the sold-out Ironman Australia 2012 event and age group qualifying spots for the Marines Ironman World Championship 70.3 in Las Vegas. More information is available at www.ironmanportmacquarie.com
