Tim Berkel stomped the bike segment in 2:00:56 and held off Tim Reed on the run to take the inaugural SunSmart Ironman 70.3 Mandurah and with it the Australian Championship crown. Melissa Hauschildt took the women's title over Liz Blatchford.

Clayton Fettell led the Pro men out of the water with a race best 20:12 swim. That gave him about a 1 minute advantage over a group that included Paul, Ambrose, Ruedi Wild, Matt Bailey, James Lewin, Casey Munro, Brett Carter and Tim Reed.

The best bike split though belonged to Tim Berkel who managed a blazing fast 2:00:56, with James Bowstead on a similar pace about 7 seconds slower. Berkel and Bowstead had come out of the water about 1:20 behind Fettell, and that was about the time they made up on the leader. The next best split was by Matty White in 2:03:27 and everybody else had lost even more time to Berkel. As it was Berkel, Bowstead and Fettell reached T2 together with a nice little gap on all the other competitors.

Out on the run Berkel quickly got away from the other two and ran to the win with a fine 1:15:42 run. Tim Reed's race best 1:15:00 run propelled him to second place and Ruedi Wild managed to grab the final podium spot.

The women's field was led out of the water by Liz Blatchford who had Annabel Luxford and Radka Vodickova right on her heels. Lisa Marangon was about 1 minute behind swim leader Blatchford and Melissa Hauschild over 2.5 minutes adrift.

Once on the bike Hauschildt though proved to be the strongest. Her 2:16:23 was best on the day and allowed her to reel in Blatchford and Vodickova and just as in the men's race a group of three led the field back to the bike-run transition. Luxford had unfortunately punctured early on during the bike segment and was forced out of the race as she had not brought a spare and that now sort of made it a three horse race.

The run turned out to be a fierce battle between Hauschildt and Blatchford with Hauschildt in the end getting the better of her British competitor. A closing 1:21:00 run and a final time of 4:03:55 meant a win for Hauschildt plus the Australian title, and Blatchford had to settle for the runner-up spot 50 seconds later. Vodickova who had been dropped early on during the run held on for third place more than 5 minutes behind the champion.


SunSmart Ironman 70.3 Mandurah
Mandura, Australia / October 21, 2012
1.2m swim / 56m bike / 13.1m run

The men

1. Tim Berkel (AUS) 3:39:59
2. Tim Reed (AUS) 3:41:45
3. Ruedi Wild (SWI) 3:43:30
4. Matt White (AUS) 3:45:39
5. James Bowstead (NZL) 3:46:19
6. Clayton Fettell (AUS) 3:47:30
7. Paul Ambrose (AUS) 3:48:27
8. Jimmy Johnsen (DEN) 3:52:43
9. James Lewin (AUS) 3:53:23
10. Matt Bailey (AUS) 3:55:44

The women

1. Melissa Hauschildt (AUS) 4:03:55
2. Liz Blatchford (GBR) 4:04:45
3. Radka Vodickova (CZE) 4:08:59
4. Sarah Crowley (AUS) 4:15:10
5. Rebecca Hoschke (AUS) 4:17:22
6. Kat Baker (AUS) 4:19:35
7. Belinda Granger (AUS) 4:21:10
8. Kira Flanagan (AUS) 4:32:02 * AG
9. Joanna Kocik (AUS) 4:40:40 * AG
10. Lisa Delaurentis (AUS) 4:41:39 * AG