June 2017

Race Conditions

Conditions in Cairns were very good this year: An adjustment of 12:14 is significantly faster than the course rating of 5:10 and the fastest ever on this course. Not surprisingly both the male and female course records were broken: Josh Amberger’s 8:02 was a 13-minute improvement on the old record by Tim Berkel, and Sarah Crowley’s 8:58 improved on a 9:06 by Jodie Swallow.

The main difference to previous years was on the bike, consequently there were also two new bike records: Cameron Wurf posted a 4:15 (bettering Luke McKenzie’s 2013 time by 6 minutes) and Sarah Crowley rode 4:50:00 (just a 40 second improvement on the 2015 ride by Jodie). Both second place finishers missed the run course records by only a few seconds – the records by Tim Berkel and Linsey Corbin still stand.

Male Race Results

Josh Amberger was leading the race from start to finish. He posted the fastest swim time (closely followed by Clayton Fettell – pretty much as expected), had the second fastest bike ride and then also posted a solid 2:53 marathon to win with a time just over 8 hours – improving his Ironman PR by more than 40 minutes and much quicker than expected by his single IM finish in South Africa!

My expectation before the race was that the race would come down to who would have the best run of the solid bike riders. This was pretty much what happened – with the exception of Josh who all day long was in front of the field. In second to fourth place are the athletes with the best, second best and fourth best marathon times: Joe Gambles was finally able to show his potential on the IM distance and added the fastest marathon to a solid bike ride, almost running down Josh. Third place went to IM New Zealand winner Braden Currie. Last year’s Cairns winner Tim Berkel was in a solid position for most of the race, but he had one bad patch on the run and eventually had to settle for fourth place. David Dellow was probably still a bit tired after his win at IM Australia just five weeks ago, still finishing fifth to secure his Kona slot. 

Female Race Results

As expected Karen Thibodeau was leading the race after the swim, but Sarah Crowley was just a few seconds behind and quickly went to the front after the start of the bike. She quickly started to pull away from the rest of the field, and even the strong biker Sarah Piampiano – as is typical for her a few minutes behind after the swim, but also loosing some time with zipper issues in T1 – wasn’t able to make up any ground. By T2 the lead was around 14 minutes. Sarah P went on to have the best run of the day with a 3:02 marathon to finish second, but Sarah C ran a solid 3:06 marathon to claim the win with a sub-9 course record time.

Third place went to Kristin Moeller backing up just two weeks after IM Brasil – a 3:03 marathon was “slow” for her but still good enough to run through the rest of the field. Dimity-Lee Duke had a good race to finish fourth, almost getting caught by another German, Katharina Grohmann who finished fifth. 

Kona Qualifying Implications

Here are the notable changes in Kona Qualifying on the male side (projected July cutoff 3.500 points):

• Automatic Qualifier: Josh Amberger
• Safe for a July slot: Braden Currie (5.640), Joe Gambles (4.960), David Dellow (4.610), Tim Berkel (3.955)
• On the Bubble (might be enough, but maybe not): Michael Fox (3.355)
• Close (but more points needed): Cam Brown (2.770), Daniil Sapunov (2.710), Mark Bowstead (2.640)

On the female side (projected cutoff 4.300 points):

• Automatic Qualifier: Sara Crowley
• Safe for a July slot: Sarah Piampiano (9.570, was already safe before)
• On the Bubble (might be enough, but maybe not): Katharina Grohmann (4.470), Kristin Moeller (4.180), Dimity-Lee Duke (4.135)
• Close (but more points needed): Jessica Mitchell (3.525), Tine Holst (3.035)