Natalie Van Coevorden and Henrik Goesch have claimed the women’s and men’s professional titles at UKG IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie, with both athletes impressing on their way to the top step of the podium.
Poor water quality due to recent heavy rain meant that the swim portion of the event was cancelled, with athletes beginning the 90km ride in time trial format, with the professionals randomly drawing their start positions and then hitting the course at 15 second intervals. Once on the bike the event continued as planned with athletes then taking on the 21.1km run before finishing on Town Green in Port Macquarie.
Sydney’s Natalie Van Coevorden led the women’s race almost from gun to tape, crossing the line in 3:45:55, three and a half minutes ahead of New Zealand’s Amelia Watkinson, with Skye Wallace in third having her best ever result in just her third professional race.
Van Coevorden was the eighth female to start the race and pushed hard early, quickly finding herself at the front and the Paris 2024 Olympic representative did not look back from there, extending her lead through the morning to eventually take the win.
Sunday’s win was back-to-back IRONMAN 70.3 victories, and a third straight triathlon race win for the year, for Van Coevorden who most recently claimed top spot at IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong in March.
“I’m pretty excited to be honest, it's three from three for this year for me, which is pretty awesome after making the transition across from short course to IRONMAN 70.3. It was a bit of a different start to the morning, not really know what was going on, but I think I made the most of today and had a really good performance,” said Van Coevorden. “I’m a bit of a strong swimmer so I didn’t know what to expect but I think I outdid myself on the bike and really showed myself that I am in good shape and I pretty much led from start to finish today which is all I can ask for.”
Van Coevorden took a lot from Sunday’s win as she continues her strong start to 2025.
“I think it just shows that I’m improving and I’m getting better and better and I think my weaknesses are now becoming my strengths and I’m putting together really consistent IRONMAN 70.3s now and hopefully I can do that for the rest of the year,” she said. “I lost a lot of confidence in myself last year, I might have gone to the Olympics but it was probably one of the worst years of my whole career so to come out and have three big wins this year is pretty special.
“I just go out and do the best that I can and I told myself I can do hard things and I think I really showed that today all of those solo kilometres that I do in training by myself paid off, I just focused on myself and kept in the present and I’m really happy to get the win,” she said.
Henrik Goesch, from Finland, took the men’s win in 3:19:27, less than a minute ahead of New Zealand’s Sam Osborne, with Australia’s Caleb Noble just behind in third.
Goesch started the bike leg 17th, more than four minutes behind Osborne who went off first, with the Kiwi leading on course from start to finish before having a nervous wait at the line as the seconds ticked away. Goesch pushed hard in the final stages of the run to hold his lead and claim his first ever IRONMAN 70.3 race win.
“We woke up to a different race morning than planned but you just go with the flow, we still had a race which was the main thing,” said Goesch. “We had the time trial start so I didn’t really know where I was at all which made it hard, so you just had to push right until the finish line.
“I got a bit of an idea at the turnarounds, got a couple of splits, but you still can’t quite trust it always, it was maybe 40 seconds in the end so not all that much,” he said.
The win was an important one for the Australian-based Finnish athlete with it his first visit to the top of the IRONMAN 70.3 podium.
“It’s my first IRONMAN 70.3 win so it’s really nice, knowing that it ended up being by 40 seconds maybe I could have enjoyed the last kilometre a bit more instead of eyes closed but it’s great, I take a lot of confidence away from that,” he said.
Athletes will continue crossing the finish line in Port Macquarie throughout the afternoon and into the night, with the final IRONMAN Australia finisher due in after midnight.
IRONMAN Australia and IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie are supported proudly by the NSW Government, through its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW.
More on IRONMAN Australia can be found at www.ironman.com/im-australia
UKG IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie – Professional Women’s Results
- Natalie Van Coevorden – 3:45:55
- Amelia Watkinson – 3:49:32
- Sky Wallace – 3:51:41
- Kylie Simpson – 3:52:37
- Samantha Kingsford – 3:54:52
- Charlotte McShane – 3:54:52
- Jasmine Brown – 3:56:37
- Chloe Hartnett – 3:58:18
- Paige Cranage – 4:00:35
- Hannah Knighton – 4:03:33
UKG IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie – Professional Men’s Results
- Henrik Goesch – 3:19:27
- Sam Osborne – 3:20:20
- Caleb Noble – 3:21:03
- Kurt McDonald – 3:23:25
- Mitch Kibby – 3:23:38
- Josh Ferris – 3:24:22
- Jack Sosinski – 3:24:24
- Josh Amberger – 3:24:43
- Roland Crantock – 3:25:41
- Thomas Page – 3:26:19