New champions take IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong titles

STEVEN McKenna and Ellie Salthouse have claimed victory at IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong, with both athletes winning at the event for the first time.

More than 1,000 competitors tackled the course, which featured a 1.9km swim, 90km bike ride and 21.1km run, starting and finishing on the Geelong waterfront on March 28.

It was not only McKenna’s first win in Geelong but also his first IRONMAN 70.3 victory, with the South Australian finishing in 3:46:45, less than a minute ahead of Trent Thorpe with Tim Reed in third.

“I was just waiting for it to explode all day and it didn’t so I’m stoked,” he said.

“The swim went as good as it could, we noticed that two went out in front instead of three, which we expected, so we had a lot of hope that we could catch the first one and then work together.

“I had good legs despite training for IRONMAN Australia, the big goal for my coach and myself at the moment is doing an IRONMAN in May in Port Macquarie so we kind of expected to be off today but certainly weren’t so maybe we’ll just not taper from now on.”

Salthouse came into IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong in strong form, having two wins at other races to begin 2021.

The Queenslander finished in 4:09:29, more than five minutes ahead of second place finisher Amelia Watkinson, with Melbourne triathlete Grace Thek in third.

Salthouse and Watkinson were at the front of the pack all day, finishing the 1.9km swim in Corio Bay first and second respectively and then powering ahead on the bike.

Watkinson, who had victories at IRONMAN 70.3 Sunshine Coast and the Cairns Airport IRONMAN Cairns Asia Pacific Championship at the end of 2020 was first onto the run.

She was closely followed by Salthouse, who took the lead within the first three kilometres and was out of reach from then on.

“I’m really happy with how today went, actually I was super surprised with it, I had a less than ideal prep heading into the last week so I’m really happy to come away with the win,” Salthouse said.

“I didn’t quite come out with as much of a lead as I would have liked onto the bike, I had a few girls with me.

“Amelia and I ended up getting a little bit of a gap and we rode the 90km together, I was able to find my run legs really quickly and get a good gap on Amelia on the first lap of the run and extend it further on the second.”

For full results, head to multisportaustralia.com.au/races/ironman-703-geelong-2021.