This Sunday, the region’s top professional triathletes will line up for the 15th anniversary edition of the Cairns Airport IRONMAN Cairns, battling it out for the 2026 titles, a piece of the $100,000 USD prize purse, and two slots per gender to the 2026 IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, Hawai`i.
Matt Burton is the only returning IRONMAN Cairns champion, a title he impressively won two years ago after nearly losing his right foot to infection just months before.
“Two years ago has been at the forefront of my mind, I had a career best day. Given the three or four months I had prior with the foot infection, it still comes as a bit of a shock,” said Burton. “Doing something once is fantastic but for me doing it twice is confirmation personally that you are good enough and that you deserve to race in that style and that fashion.”
Consistent form has been hard to come by for the Perth athlete since then – but a fit and healthy Burton is a force to be reckoned with on any day.
“If I thought that three months was hard, the last two years after winning here in 2024 have probably been the most challenging athletically during my professional career. Everyone goes through different periods, and a lot of people may question why I’m still here at the ripe age of 38, but I’ll stop when I start getting slower and for now, I feel in great shape and ready for whatever the conditions are and ready to do it again,” he said.
“I’ve had one of the most enjoyable six months of training over the 18 years that I’ve been in the sport, despite the racing in both Geelong and South Africa – you can never prepare for things that are somewhat out of your control come race day and I was able to move on from those pretty quickly,” he said. “Particularly the last six to eight weeks since I’ve been home from South Africa, I just had a very consistent, strong period of training. I have a great blueprint from two years ago, so I followed very similar and I’ve come over to Cairns at a very similar time.”
Returning to Cairns for the 11th time, Burton is less focused on the field around him and more on chasing the standard he set in 2024, leaning on his experience and strengths in what he expects will be a fast and furious race.
“On Sunday I’m just here to beat myself. I know that’s cliché, but I honestly feel like I’m racing myself from 2024 because there’s some things I did that day which we hadn’t seen in Cairns before – setting the bike course record,” said Burton.
“I expect it to be very hot early as there’s a lot of young guys. There’s this new way of trying to take it up the road wire to wire, but IRONMAN is a different beast – it’s not an IRONMAN 70.3, it’s not a 100 distance, it’s not a 10km road race. All the track sessions in the world can’t dictate how you’re feeling at 35km into the marathon. So, I feel super strong, I’ve lent into my strengths through this training period and sure it gets hard at some points for me, but I feel very confident in that approach.”
Burton’s fellow West Australian Nick Thompson will likely start as favourite to win this year’s men’s race following a breakout season last year that saw him finish second at IRONMAN Cairns, seventh at the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice, France, and fourth overall in the IRONMAN Pro Series – earning Thompson a healthy $70,000 USD year-end bonus.
“My preparation for this race for the most part has been quite productive. Some occasional low patches over the training block since IRONMAN Texas in April but I’m quite happy with the majority of the training I’ve managed to complete,” said Thompson.
“The last IRONMAN I did in Australia was in Busselton and it was really hard to create any separation until it was far too late on the bike. The two times I’ve raced in Cairns, there’s been some significant separation amongst the field in the last half of the bike which has resulted in healthy leads for the first person off the bike. Matt Burton showed in 2024 that it’s definitely a defendable position to be in. Me last year, not so much. I expect to see Burto produce something similar to his 2024 race, and I would like to follow any moves like that,” he said.
Thompson and Burton are two of the strongest bikers in the men’s field and along with former professional cyclist Ben Hill, they’ll be hoping to put as much time into New Zealand’s Jack Moody as possible over the 180km ride along the Captain Cook Highway, with the Kiwi’s run one of the best in the field.
Other athletes to keep an eye in the men’s race are Australia’s Caleb Noble and Japan’s Jumpei Furuya, who finished second and third respectively at December’s IRONMAN Western Australia Asia Pacific Championship, American Colin Szuch, and New Zealand’s Ben Hamilton.
In the women’s race, Regan Hollioake will wear the number one bib, looking to add a fourth IRONMAN triathlon title to her name. Hollioake finished fifth in Cairns last year and is excited to return to the race in paradise once again.
“I’ve managed to get through some really solid work these past few months since IRONMAN New Zealand and have got on top of a couple of health issues that were holding me up earlier this year,” said Hollioake. “IRONMAN is all about consistency and the work has been solid and consistent. This is a race I’ve been looking forward to all year – it’s, in my opinion, the best race on the calendar so I’m really looking forward to celebrating and showing off the training I’ve done on race day.”
Since finishing fifth at ANZCO Foods IRONMAN New Zealand in March, Hollioake has raced two middle distance triathlons – but says she can’t wait to get back to racing an IRONMAN, calling the 226-kilometre distance her “true love”.
“These [shorter] races have been a really good opportunity for me to work on my top end, sharpen my race skills and have some fun doing something a little different,” she said. “It’s been really encouraging to see everything level upwards, so when I came back to IRONMAN training, I really noticed the benefits in my numbers and feelings. The IRONMAN full distance is my true love though, so I’m keen to get reacquainted with this distance and hopefully show off those improvements we’ve made.”
Hollioake is expecting an interesting race on Sunday, with a number of the women racing similarly matched in strengths and style.
“We could see some big gaps forming in the last 40kms if people don’t play it smart and save some bickies for the headwind into town,” she said. “Similar on the run. It’s deceivingly challenging with the flat profile. We could see some rapid run times, but also the potential for blow outs with the challenging conditions. That’s what we love about IRONMAN, anything is possible!
“This race means a lot to us Aussies and Kiwis, so I know we will all be fighting very, very hard for the win. I’m the only girl on the start list with my Kona qualification so the shackles are off for me. I’m excited to race without the Kona monkey on my back and go out there and make the day as hard as possible for everyone out there. I think we are in for a hard but fun day,” said Hollioake.
Canberra’s Penny Slater will be hoping 2026 is the year she puts together a complete performance at IRONMAN Cairns having raced here four times previously, with a trio of fourth place finishes and one podium.
“Cairns is definitely my favourite IRONMAN course with the beautiful but very honest bike course and the best run atmosphere in the world,” said Slater. “I've had some okay races in Cairns, but I've never quite had the performance or result I was after – so I think that keeps me coming back. It’s on my bucket list for my career to win Cairns, so I'll keep going until I do.”
Slater is hoping to put a challenging 18 months behind her when she lines up on Sunday.
“Preparation for Cairns has gone as well as I could have hoped for after a rocky 18 months, being able to string together some of my most consistent and harder weeks of training in a long while. It's always a bit of a question mark with the heat coming from Canberra winter but I feel like I am in good shape to have a great race,” she said.
Two other returning athletes who have finished in the top five previously at IRONMAN Cairns include New Zealand’s Rebecca Clarke and Australia’s Kate Gillespie-Jones, a former professional AFLW player. All athletes in the professional women’s field with the exception of Hollioake will be racing for one of the two IRONMAN World Championship slots on offer, making for a highly competitive race come Sunday.
Below are the Cairns Airport IRONMAN Cairns professional start lists:
- MENS PROFESSIONAL FIELD
- M1 - Nick Thompson - Australia
- M2 - Jack Moody - New Zealand
- M3 - Caleb Noble - Australia
- M4 - Colin Szuch - United States
- M5 - Benjamin Hill - Australia
- M6 - Jumpei Furuya - Japan
- M8 - Jarrod Osborne - Australia
- M9 - Matt Burton - Australia
- M10 - Jack Sosinski - Australia
- M11 - Benjamin Hamilton - New Zealand
- M12 - Kosuke Terasawa - Japan
- M14 - Patrick Bleasel - Australia
- M15 - Tristan Price - Australia
- M16 - Kaito Tohara - Japan
- M17- Hamish Longmuir - Australia
- M18 - Kyle Tremayne - Australia
- M20 - Rhys Corbishley - Australia
- M21 - Roland Crantock - Australia
- M22 - Scott Harpham - New Zealand
- M23 - Calvin Amos - Australia
- M24 - Thomas Page - Australia
- M25 - Nathan Dortmann – Australia
- WOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL FIELD
- F1 - Regan Hollioake - Australia
- F2 - Rebecca Clarke - New Zealand
- F3 - Penny Slater - Australia
- F4 - Kate Gillespie-Jones - Australia
- F5 - Chloe Hartnett - Australia
- F6 - Danyella Eberle - Australia
- F7 - Caitlin Davis - Australia
- F8 - Laura Dennis - Australia
- F9 - Skye Wallace - Australia
- F10 - Emily Donker – Australia
- *Subject to change.
For more information on the Cairns Airport IRONMAN Cairns visit: https://www.ironman.com/im-cairns
The Cairns Airport IRONMAN Cairns is supported by the Queensland Government through Tourism and Events Queensland.