With 300 meters to go, Australia’s Emma Moffatt burst away from a race-long duel with her closest World Championship Series rival, Sweden’s Lisa Norden, to win the ITU Grand Final and the 2009 World Champion Series points championship Sunday.

Moffatt, showing no signs of her six weeks bout with a painful foot injury, wrapped up a three-win, one second place WCS regular season with a rousing home country win in the Grand Final.

When she crossed the line in 1:59:14 with five seconds to spare over Norden, Moffatt won $30,000 for winning the race and $55,000 in the bonus pool for winning the World Championship Series. Norden took home $22,000 for her second place finish on the day and $42,000 for coming second in the World Championship Series standings.

Moffatt came into the World Championship Series finale with a second place at Tongyeong, South Korea, and wins at Washington D.C., Kitzbuhel Austria, and Hamburg. This gave Moffatt a relatively slim 120-point lead which required that she stay within one place of Norden at the Gold Coast to earn the crown.

Instead, she padded that lead with a second-best 34:46 10km run that cracked Norden in roughly the same place that men’s winner Alistair Brownlee broke open his duel with runner-up Javier Gomez on Saturday.

“I couldn’t have asked for anything more,” said Moffatt, who finished third at the Beijing Olympics. “The fans here were so behind me I felt I couldn’t have let them down.”

Moffatt’s 2009 win makes it 12 Olympic distance world titles by eight Australian women in the 21 years in which the International Triathlon Union has served as the international governing body for the sport of triathlon. Moffatt joins an incredible murderer’s row of Aussie champions -- Michellie Jones (1992 and 1993), Emma Carney (1994 and 1997) Jackie Gallagher (1996), Joanne King (1998), Loretta Harrop (1999), Nicole Hackett (2000), and Emma Snowsill (2003, 2005, 2006) – a record of national domination likely unmatched by any country in any internationally contested sport.

U.S. women are a distant second in this category, with three women earning four ITU Olympic distance world titles – Karen Smyers (1990 and 1995), Siri Lindley (2001) and Sheila Taormina (2004).

Norden, who came into this contest with World Championship Series second place finishes at Madrid, Hamburg and London along with a win at Yokohama, gave it her best shot, surging ahead of Moffatt at least three times before surrendering in the final footfalls of the sun-splashed run.

“I knew it would be hard to get up to first,” said Norden, who earned Sweden’s first ever medal in ITU World Championship competition. “I hoped Haskins might catch her. But Emma is a real strong girl and all credit to her.”

Norden, who won the ITU Under 23 World Championship in 2007, took consolation and particular pride in making the seven woman swim-bike break that gave her a real shot at the win. “I do not come from a swim background, so to make the first pack on the bike was a big step for me.”

In a reprise of their stirring duel for the ITU World Championship win last year, Great Britain’s Helen Jenkins passed the USA’s Sarah Haskins with 600 meters to go to take the final spot on Grand Final podium, taking third place in 1:59:41, 11 seconds in front of Haskins, besting Haskins’ brave run by 35:04 to 35:16.

With the reconfigured prestige of the ITU’s World Championship Series replacing a one-day World Championship, New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt protected her third place standing in the World Championship Series with an 8th place finish Sunday. Hewitt’s 3462 points earned her $30,000, far more than the $4,800 she earned for the day’s finish.

Jenkins’ last lap pass of Haskins also gave her a virtual photo finish pass of Haskins in the World Championship Series points rankings. With her third place finish, Jenkins took 5th in the WCS standings, nudging Haskins back to 6th by a margin of 34 points, 3173 to 3139.

The race was also notable for the career swan song of 2004 Olympic champion Kate Allen of Austria, who was lapped on the bike and took an official DNF, although she finished the run. Allen declared this was to be her last professional race.

All-time ITU World Cup win leader Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal took a start but was obviously still hampered by injuries that chort circuited her 2009 season and did not finish.

Emma Snowsill, 2008 Olympic champion and Moffat’s training partner, heeded doctor’s warnings to stay on the sidelines so as not to risk a recurrence of her recent hip injury.

Gold Coast ITU Triathlon World Championship
Surfers Paradise, Australia
September 12, 2009
S 1.5k/ B 40k/ R 10k

Elite Women results

1. Emma Moffatt (AUS) 1:59:14 -- $30,000
2. Lisa Norden (SWE) 1:59:19 -- $22,000
3. Helen Jenkins (GBR) 1:59:41 – $16,000
4. Sarah Haskins (USA) 1:59:52 – $12,000
5. Annabel Luxford (AUS) 2:00:07 -- $9,300
6. Daniela Ryf (SUI) 2:00:21-- $7,500
7. Magali di Marco Messmer (SUI) 2:00:25-- $6,000
8. Andrea Hewitt (NZL) 2:00:26 -- $4,800
9. Jessica Harrison (FRA) 2:00:26 -- $3,800
10. Liz Blatchford (GBR) 2:00:29 -- $3,200
11. Ricarda Lisk (GER) 2:00:42 -- $2,700
12. Kate McIlroy (NZL) 2:00:54 -- $2,300
13. Sarah Groff (USA) 2:01:03 -- $2,000
14. Anja Dittmer (GER) 2:01:09 -- $1,800
15. Debbie Tanner (NZL) 2:01:37 -- $1,600
16. Ainhoa Murua (ESP) 2:01:45
17. Jure Ide (JPN) 2:01:47
18. Vendula Frintova (CZE) 2:01:59
19. Lauren Groves (CAN) 2:02:07
20. Felicity Sheedy-Ryan (AUS) 2:02:12
23, Mary Beth Ellis (USA) 2:02:40
29, Jillian Peterson (USA) 2:04:09

DNFs include: Kate Allen (AUT), Vanessa Fernandes (POR), Elizabeth May (LUX), Kiyomi Niwata (JPN), Kirsten Sweetland (CAN), Barbara Riveros-Diaz (CHI)

2009 Dextro Energy World Championship Series women’s final standings

1. Emma Moffatt (AUS) 4340 points - $55,000
2. Lisa Norden (SWE) 4130 points - $42,000
3. Andrea Hewitt (NZL) 3462 points - $30,000
4. Daniela Ryf (SUI) 3187 points - $20,000
5. Helen Jenkins ( GBR) ) 3173 - $16,000
6. Sarah Haskins (USA) 3139 points – $12,000
7. Juri Ide (JPN) 2477 points – $10,000
8. Magali di Marco (SUI) 2422 points – $8,000
9. Jessica Harrison (FRA) 2365 points – $7,500
10. Annabel Luxford (AUS) 2191 points - $7,000
17. Sarah Groff (USA) 1839 points - $3,500
34. Mary Beth Ellis (USA) 955 points
43. Laura Bennett (USA) 678 points
55. Jillian Peterson (USA) 387 points
69. Rebeccah Wassner (USA) 239 points