Two converts from other sporting backgrounds scored breakthrough victories at the IRONMAN 70.3 Japan.
Australian Lindsey Lawry, a former surf sport athlete who won a medal in his age group at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship last year won a wire-to-wire victory in the elite men. Lawry was out water with fellow Australians Sam Douglas and veteran Luke Bell in 24:53 and opened a gap late on the bike with a 2:12:14 effort. He took a 2:30 buffer on Bell and Douglas on to the 21.1km run, but the challenge ultimately came from another Australian, Mitch Kibby. Down 5:38 off the bike, Kibby, a well-known performance coach, produced a superb 1:16 run to close within sight of Lawry but came up 80 m short in the final dash. Lawry's swim-bike established sufficient safeguard to withstand the dash from the back despite a 1:22 run.
Meanwhile, compatriot Grace Thek used her running prowess to earn her first IRONMAN 70.3 victory after finishing runner-up at Geelong earlier this year. The former US college scholarship runner was 90 seconds down on Guam’s Manami Iijima out of the swim, before American Christine Cross rode through to the front to take a 1:15 buffer on to the run. Thek had a run best of 1:28:55, hitting the front at the 17k mark and going on to win in 2:32:07 with 1:15 back to Cross and 2:45 to Iijima.
Top 5 Pro Men
1 Lawry, Lindsey AUS 4:04:11
2 Kibby, Mitch AUS 4:04:21
3 Douglas, Sam AUS 4:05:49
4 Groch, Nathan AUS 4:07:28
5 Sapunov, Daniil UKR 4:07:44
Top 5 Pro Women
1 Thek, Grace AUS 4:36:19
2 Cross, Christine USA 4:37:54
3 Iijima, Manami GUM 4:38:47
4 Tyack, Lisa AUS 4:47:12
5 Szeto, Leane HGK 4:57:21