Amberger took an early lead on the swim and bike legs then held off British star Tim Don’s second-best run to finish in 3:56:50 with a 1:29 margin of victory over Don and 5:57 over 3rd-place Justin Metzler of the U.S.

Coming after a victory at Calgary, the Xiamen win was Amberger’s second win of 2016 that included runner-up finishes at 70.3s in Dubai and Putrajaya.

Emma Pallant of Great Britain and Jeanni Seymour led the women's field out of the water in 32:29 and 32:33 respectively, which gave them a 2:33 lead on Caroline Livesey of Great Britain, 5:10 on Sarah Lester of Australia, and 5:12 and 5:13 on U.S. competitors Sarah Piampiano and Lisa Roberts.

Pallant and Seymour teamed up to stretch their lead by 57km to 3:34 on Piampiano, 6:16 on Parys Edwards of Great Britain and more on Roberts and Livesey.

By 78km, Seymour shed Pallant and rocketed ahead to a women’s-best 2:20:15 bike split which brought her to T2 with a 1:53 lead on Pallant (2:22:14 bike split) and blew away the rest of the field - 5:55 on Piampiano (2:20:39 bike split), 8:50 on Edwards, 11:10 on Livesey and 11:11 on Roberts.

After the first of three 7km run laps, Seymour lengthened her lead to 7:12 on fast-fading Pallant, who dropped out soon thereafter. After two laps and 14km, Seymour led Piampiano by 7:39 and Edwards by 11:15. By the finish, Seymour’s women’s-best 1:25:08 run brought her to the line in 4:24:02 with an 8:30 margin on Piampiano (1:27:19 run) and 12:09 on Roberts (1:25:37 run).

Ironman.com photos