Endurance personified at IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong

A THIRD return to the podium and Dutch dominance headlined Sunday as Sam Appleton and Lotte Wilms claimed victory at last weekend’s IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong, with both athletes leading from start to finish to kick off 2022 on a high note.

Appleton crossed the line in 3:41:15, almost two minutes ahead of defending champion Steve McKenna, with Josh Amberger a further 30 seconds behind in third.

It was Appleton’s third event win in Geelong, going back-to-back in 2017 and 2018, and only arriving home to Australia from America a few days prior to the race, his first time back in the country in two years.

“It feels great to kick off 2022 with a win here in Geelong,” Appleton said.

“I love this race, it’s actually one of my favourite races on the whole circuit, it’s beautiful and the whole town gets behind it, it’s a great atmosphere.”

Appleton came out of the water following the 1.9km swim in Corio Bay just behind Amberger, with the top two extending their lead over the 90km ride.

Appleton started the run just 15 seconds clear of Amberger and powered ahead to claim victory, with McKenna passing Amberger in the final stages of the run to finish second.

“The race plan was to swim hard, bike hard, I knew there were a lot of really fast runners, so it was in my interest to get a bit of a gap and fortunately I had good run legs, last year my run let me down a little bit and today I felt better than any of my runs in all my races last year,” Appleton said.

“I made a promise to myself at the end of last year to work on my weaknesses and that was obviously my run and today was a step in the right direction.”

In the women’s race, Lotte Wilms was the clear favourite early on, finishing in 4:07:41, more than three-and-a-half minutes clear of Amelia Watkinson by the race’s conclusion, with Victorian Grace Thek a further five minutes behind in third.

Wilms, Australian-based and of Dutch nationality, was the athlete to beat all day, coming out of the water with an almost one-and-a-half-minute lead and from there on she never looked back, continuing to extend her lead over the 90km ride and 21.1km run.

Wilms’ win in Geelong was even more impressive with it being just her second ever IRONMAN 70.3 race, after claiming victory on debut at IRONMAN 70.3 Sunshine Coast last September.

“It’s crazy, really crazy, but absolutely nice and I really like the IRONMAN races, the feeling is really good, there were a lot of people around today and the Geelong spectators were fantastic, I got so much support, I really enjoyed the race today, especially on the run,” Wilms said post-win.

“I’ve been here for eight years, I moved to Australia eight years ago, I really love this country, I trained with a swim team up in Newcastle when I was 19 for around eight months and I really loved the sport culture and I said I want to go back and taste more of that.”