The Kiwi, New Zealand’s moniker, is a flightless bird but IRONMAN 70.3 Bintan showed that Kiwis can fly with a double victory for Mike Phillips and Amelia Watkinson.
Phillips has been a part-time athlete after his ITU days, mixing life as a structural engineer – a sought-after profession in the wake of his earthquake-hit home city of Christchurch – with that of the professional endurance triathlete.
After four IRONMAN 70.3 podiums, Phillips put it all together on the island of Bintan – the best swim of 23:49 and best bike of 2:06.35 gave him a three minute buffer on to the run.
While the challenges were expected, Phillips pushed the advantage to five minute at halfway and while he slowed over the final 5km, Italy’s Domenico Passuello and defending champion Freddie Croneborg both ran out of real estate. Phillips won in 3:55.56 with Passuello only 2:22 behind with a further four mins to Croneborg.
The women’s race was more clear-cut with the in-form Watkinson doing as she did two weeks ago at IRONMAN 70.3 Philippines – leading from the get-go in a class of her own.
She came out of the swim with Australian Laura Dennis but by just 22kms into the bike, the advantage was already 2:36. That stretched to over eight minutes on to the run from Dennis and Anna Eberhardt, 10 minutes at the midway point and finally winning in 4:20:54.
Eberhardt was second 12 minutes back with defending champion Kate Bevilaqua third nearly 21 minutes back – testament to the domination from this talented young athlete as she prepares for the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships.
Top 5 Pro Men
1 Phillips, Mike NZL 3:54:38
2 Passuello, Domenico ITA 3:57:19
3 Croneborg, Fredrik SWE 4:01:56
4 Crawford, Guy NZL 4:09:25
5 Polizzi, Alexander AUS 4:15:27
Top 5 Pro Women
1 Watkinson, Amelia NZL 4:20:55
2 Eberhardt, Anna HUN 4:33:14
3 Bevilaqua, Kate AUS 4:41:47
4 Dennis, Laura AUS 4:47:21
5 Toulmin, Karen NZL 5:11:43