Sam Appleton blew away the opposition with a sizzling fast 2:10:26 bike split and Yvonne Van Vlerken edged Liz Blatchford by 4 seconds to win the men’s and women‘s titles at Challenge Batemans Bay.

Appleton combined a 3rd-best 25:31 swim, a dominating race-fastest 2:10:36 bike split that was 8 minutes faster than his nearest pursuer, and hung on for victory with a 7th-fastest 1:19:55 run. Appleton finished in 3:57:29 with a 3 minutes lead on 3-time ITU World Champion Peter Robertson and 9:19 on 3rd-place finisher Per Bittner of Austria.

Blatchford began with a 27:07 swim that was one second behind Mary Beth Ellis and 3:59 ahead of Van Vlerken. Van Vlerken made up all 4 minutes with a race-best 2:29:11 bike split and all three took off together on the run. While Ellis fell off the pace, Van Vlerken dueled fiercely with Blatchford to the very end. Thanks to a race-best 1:23:38 run that was 3 second better than Blatchford‘s split, Van Vlerken finished first in 4:25:47, 4 seconds ahead of Blatchford and 3:31 ahead of 3rd-place finisher Ellis.

Challenge Batemans Bay
Batemans Bay, Australia
March 29, 2015
S 1.2 / B 56 mi. / R 13.1 mi.

Results

1. Sam Appleton (AUS) 3:57:29
2. Peter Robertson (AUS) 4:03:21
3. Per Bittner (AUT) 4:06:48
4. Nick Kastelein (AUS) 4:08:12
5. Ryan Waddington (AUS) 4:08:54

Women

1. Yvonne van Vlerken (NED) 4:25:47
2. Liz Blatchford (GBR) 4:25:51
3. Mary Beth Ellis (USA) 4:29:31
4. Kate Bevilaqua (AUS) 4:35:17
5. Sarah Crowly (AUS) 4:36:32