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,” she said.
“It was a bit of a different start to the morning, not really knowing what was going on, but I think I made the most of today and had a really good performance.”
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.”
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.
Athletes continued crossing the finish line in Port Macquarie throughout the afternoon and into the night.
IRONMAN Australia and IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie are supported proudly by the NSW Government, through its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW.
