History in the making

Chris McCormack and Lisa Bentley win big in Australia

Chris McCormack and Lisa Bentley made it five in a row at Panthers Ironman Australia this weekend, the first time the race took place in the new site of Port Macquarie. Ironmanlive's Nick Munting was there to cover the action.

Australia's Chris McCormack and Canada's Lisa Bentley re-wrote the triathlon history books at Panthers Ironman Australia in winning the race an amazing fifth time each.

Over 1,500 athletes entered the Hastings River this morning to begin their road to Ironman and it immediately became clear we were about to witness an awesome race and an incredible day of racing.

 

The two lap swim was hotly disputed, with Australia's Shane Gibbs taking the 3.8km leg in 46:09. Andrew Johns was hot on his heels, while the favorites Chris McCormack and Chris Legh were not many seconds behind. Others up front included Andrew Johns, Craig McKenzie and Matthew Tippet.

 

Into the bike leg Legh and McCormack took the race to the front of the field, joined by New Caledonia's Patrick Vernay, a two time winner of of Ironman Korea.

 

The trio drilled through the first two laps and, while the rest of the field struggled, swapped the lead and gradually pulled away. Eventually the pace, and his health became an issue for Chris Legh, who fell off the pace when McCormack threw in a major surge. Vernay continued to hang tough through to the end of the bike. In fact the Frenchman captured the fastest bike split with a 4:46:48.

 

Jason Shortis replaced Legh as the chaser through the run as he surged into third while many others faded out of the top ten.

 

Chris McDonald, Shane Gibbs, and others dropped down the leader board as the runners in the field applied pressure, but nothing appeared to faze McCormack, who simply answered each challenge with attack and strode away from his pursuers with an awesome 2:47 marathon split.

 

Amongst the top 20, just four athletes ran under three hours on the hilly run course. Vernay stayed strong in second while Shortis kept the pressure on to hold third. A solid performance through the race payed dividends for Victoria's Craig McKenzie, the Victorian coming home in fourth from seasoned campaigner but Ironman rookie, England's Andrew Johns who captured fifth place.

 

The top ten were rounded out by solid performances from Klayten Smith, Justin Granger, Chris McDonald and first age grouper, Tim Prowse, a resident of Port Macquarie who finished ninth followed by Victoria's David Meade.

 

"The more Ironman races I do the more patient I am, and I know that I can now win from different positions and I don't have to have ten minutes lead off the bike," said McCormack following his historic victory. "No one has given credit to my run and I've run the fastest time here today!"

 

"I tried to work the hills on the course today and it paid off!"

 

The top ten men were separated by around forty minutes; the top 20 by less than an hour but the times did not convey the sheer excitement of this race.

 

The women’s race was an extraordinary event topped by the awesome performance of Lisa Bentley who also captured her fifth successive title in Australia.

 

Much of the race belonged to Belinda Granger. She swam well, biked extraordinarily well and ran the third fastest time of the top 15 women. Leading the swim was age grouper Sarah Pollett with a 48:36 split. The 'usual suspects' were joined by some new faces such as Lisbeth Kristensen, but Granger quickly carved her way to the lead, but she was shadowed by a large number of other woman as the race seemed incredibly close for many kilometers. Eventually Granger was able to surge away over the final kilometers of the bike to enter T2 with a clear lead.

 

Behind her Melissa Ashton was the model of efficiency pushing hard throughout the bike and well into the run, but it was Granger who seemed to be in a winning position with her solid 11:55 lead over Bentley going into the marathon.

 

In the end, though, Bentley prevailed thanks to her 52:30 swim, 5:26 bike and 3:01 marathon ("I had 2:59 on my watch", she told us), which, on the day, was the best effort of all.

 

Behind her Belinda Granger's race was sensational. The crowd favorite rose to all but one challenge, while Melissa Ashton also delivered. Hungary's Erika Csomor finished fourth after delivering the second fastest marathon of the day and Angela Milne, after winning Ironman Western Australian struggled in the run for a time before “gutsing” it out to finish in fifth.

 

"Winning an Ironman is so tough, but to win five is extraordinary and each one is special," said Bentley. "This was a tough course and my legs were really sore at the end of the bike but once I was out on the run, well!"

 

Lisa, already a renowned runner, revealed that she's been working with coach, Lance Watson, aiming at a 2:55 marathon! 

 

There was a sad post script to the day's racing when, just after Melissa Ashton, Chris Legh crossed the line to announce his immediate retirement from Ironman racing...

 

The talented Legh began his career in this race back in 1997. He raced head to head with Peter Reid in a spectacular race just one year after a dramatic and life threatening, but very public non-finish in Hawaii. Legh managed to overcome the subsequent surgery an illness discovered later to win two Ironman races.

 

Chris - thanks for the memories.

 

You can check out the entire day’s coverage by clicking on the event banner at the top of the page.