IRONMAN Pro Series Kicks off in Geelong with Internet Outage Derailing Live Coverage

Australia has long been one of the sport’s major players, and the IRONMAN Asia-Pacific crew has been working hard to utilize its tourism connections to help bring IRONMAN Pro Series events to the country. Last year the 70.3 event in Busselton and IRONMAN Cairns were including as part of the tour. This year Australia will feature a couple of events again – today’s series opener in Geelong and the Asia-Pacific championship in Cairns.

Getting many international athletes down under to start their race season was never likely to happen, but one big name was on hand. Thanks to reigning IRONMAN 70.3 world champion Jelle Geens’ recent move to Queensland’s Gold Coast, the Geelong event was an easy trip and also a perfect opportunity to tune up before the upcoming T100 Singapore race – Geens is one of the PTO’s contracted athletes for the series.

That doesn’t mean Geens was in for an easy time – there was a full field of Aussie and Kiwi competitors ready to take on the Belgian star. Add to that the fact that he’d been sick during his preparation for the race and didn’t finally decide to make the trip until the Saturday before the race, and you had even more reason to expect some close racing.

The women’s race didn’t have quite the same star power as the men, but promised some interesting racing between the likes of T100-contracted athletes like Hannah Berry and Grace Thek taking on former draft-legal specialists like Natalie Van Coevorden and Charlotte McShane.

The live coverage of the race started off well enough as Aussie world champs Greg Welch and Mirinda Carfrae provided live commentary to go along with the video footage from the front of the men’s and women’s racing. Things went awry, though, before the leaders got to the halfway point of the bike, with an internet outage at the race site, organizers were forced to “suspend” the coverage of the race.

Men’s Race

Former Aussie junior draft-legal star Josh Ferris led the way out of the water in 21:28, with another short-course specialist, Matt Hauser, on his heels. Another Aussie, Aaron Royle, was next out at 21:35, with Kiwis Tayler Reid and Braden Currie another second behind. Japan’s Kenji Nener, another short-course type, was another second behind, with Geens hitting dry land 12 seconds out of first. There were 12 mine with 19 seconds of the lead heading into T1. Super-cyclist Cam Wurf was in 14th after the swim, 48 seconds down.

Hauser’s race would end early on in the bike – he would post on Instagram that the bolts on his aero bars snapped.

By the halfway point of the bike there was a group of 13 men within 13 seconds of each other. In the lead group were Geens, Currie, Ferris, Royle, Nener and Reid, along with Aussies Kurt McDonald, Jake Birtwhistle, Kurt McDonald, Ben Hill, Jarrod Osborne and Will Clarke, with Great Britain’s Cameron Main also in the mix.

By the end of the bike the lead group was down to 10, with 29 seconds separating the first 10, while Hamilton was at 2:01 back in 11th, Wurf had moved to 12th (2:24 behind). Clark hit T2 alongside Wurf.

Through the early part of the run the race quickly took on the look of a World Triathlon Championship Series race as Geens, Birtwhistle Nener and Reid started to pull clear. Through 3.5 km Main was 21 seconds back, with Royle at 34 seconds and Currie, McDonald and Ferris all about a minute back.

It wasn’t long, though, before Geens decided he didn’t want company, and through 7.2 km he had opened a gap of 10 seconds on Nener and Reid. By 10 km the gap had doubled, with Birtwhistle now 38 seconds behind in fourth and Main another 13 seconds behind. Geens continued to apply the pressure as Reid and Nener continued to run together, as Birtwhistle kept the pair within striking distance.

As the men neared the finish Geens continued to dominate the men’s race, but Birtwhistle’s patience was finally paying off. As Reid and Nener faded, Birtwhistle would move to second with 4 km to go, about eight seconds up on Reid. Nener was passed by Main and was suddenly struggling to just hang on to the top-five.

There was no touching Geens, though, as he flew through the final stretch of the race to win by just short of a minut, crossing the line in 3:33:23 after a 1:07:58 run. Birtwhistle would take second, 45 seconds down, with Reid rounding out the podium ahead of Main and Nener.

“I was very pleased that I came out of the water with the front group,” Geens said in an interview after the race. “I really tried to make a bit of a move on the bike, maybe 15 k’s in – I really pushed quite hard for like 10 to 15 km, but everyone was still there after the U-turn, so I figured it was gonna get hard to get rid of a lot of people. I think the course was a bit too flat and, I think with the 12-meter rule, and when there’s a group of 10 or 15 people, it really makes it hard to to get rid of people. You could really feel that sitting third or fourth wheel it was a lot easier than at the front. But, still, the second lap on the bike was was quite on, which made some people’s legs quite tired, I think. I felt good coming off the bike, so I thought I would push the pace, hoping to get a gap quite early on. I went out quite quite fast, for sure a pace that would be hard to sustain for the whole 21 km, but I eventually got the gap. It took me a bit longer than expected, and I slowly could increase the gap and consolidate it for the full 21 km.”

While Geens has signed a T100 contract, he is still very focused on trying to defend his 70.3 world title at the end of the year.

“I am really hoping to do some good races early on in the T 100 series so that I can really focus on the world champs in Marbella,” he continued. “I really want to defend my title there. The course looks really cool. I think it will be nice for me, as one of the lighter guys, to have quite a bit of climbing there. I’m very excited for that race and I hope now to do some good T100 races so I can skip a few around Marbella so I can really focus on that race.”

Men’s Top 5:

• 1. Jelle Geens (BEL) 3:33:23 ( 21:40/ 1:59:56/ 1:07:58)
• 2. Jake Birtwhistle (AUS) 3:34:08 (21:44/ 1:59:53/ 1:08:47)
• 3. Tayler Reid (NZL) 3:34:39 (21:36/ 2:00:02/ 1:09:14)
• 4. Cameron Main (GBR) 3:34:49 (21:40/ 1:59:58/ 1:09:21)
• 5. Kenji Nener (JAP) 3:36:23 (21:37/ 2:00:09/ 1:10:56)

Women’s Race

New Zealand’s Teresa Adam led the way out of the water in 23:23, with Van Coevorden, who hadn’t done a great job of staying on the Kiwi’s feet but still managed to keep up, hitting the beach a second behind. Next out were another two Kiwis – Hannah Knighton and Hannah Berry, both at 23:37. Regan Hollioake (AUS) would lead a group of five out about a minute down that included Great Britain’s Jodie Stimpson and fellow Aussie Grace Thek.

Stimpson would get a flat as she came out of transition, but was able to get it fixed and get back on the road, but wouldn’t get back into the top 10 through the bike.

Berry and Hollioake would push hard on the bike, eventually separating a group of five that included Van Coevorden, Adam and Knighton clear of the rest of the field. Through 57 km the group was almost four minutes up on Thek, and by the time they hit 72 km, the lead was 4:36 on a group led by Chloe Lane (AUS) that also included Thek and American Gabrielle Lumkes.

Knighton wasn’t able to hang on to the lead group and would end up almost two minutes down as Berry led the leaders into T2 after a 2:14:58 bike split. A quick transition saw Berry open up 14 seconds on Van Coevorden starting the run.

Through 7.2 km of the run Berry was still out front, but Van Coevorden was only 12 seconds down, with Hollioake over two minutes behind. Thek, a former NCAA cross-country national champion, was using her running talents to move up through the field, but was still 4:32 down in fourth.

Van Coevorden made her move shortly after that split, and through 8.5 km had taken the lead and was starting to open up some space on Berry. Thek would move her way into the top three shortly after the halfway point of the run, but had too much ground to make up to catch the other two. She was certainly giving it a try, though – with 4 km of running to go Van Coevorden was still in front, but Berry wasn’t going away and was still just 24 seconds down. Thek was just over two minutes behind.

Van Coevorden stayed strong to the line, finishing in 4:05:58, 29 seconds ahead of Berry. Thek used the day’s fastest run split (1:18:59) to round out the podium in 4:07:41. Hollioake crossed the line in fourth, with countrywoman Chloe Lane taking fifth.

In a post-race interview we learned that Van Coevorden came very close to not starting the race this morning.

“To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would race today,” she said. “I woke up with a bit of a sore throat and I said to my coach ‘I don’t know if I should start.’ He said, ‘Just give it a go.’ Honestly the race couldn’t have gone any better and I’m really happy to execute a great race for my first year focusing on this distance.”


”I feel like sometimes when you don’t focus on the race so much, you just let your body do what it needs to do,” she continued. “My body just knew what I had to do today and it took the race pressure off.”

While Van Coevorden has done some half-distance races, today’s race was a breakthrough in terms of more than just the win.

“It’s the first time, to be honest, that I felt like I’ve executed every single leg,” she said. “And I think that’s a really positive sign after only doing his distance properly for the past six months. It’s a great sign for the year and hopefully we can keep focusing more and more on my weaknesses that need to improve.”

Van Coevorden will now gear up for another 70.3 race in Port Macquarie in six weeks, then will continue to look for “high quality competition over in Europe” through the rest of the season.


Women’s Top 5:

• 1. Natalie Van Coevorden (AUS) 4:05:58 (23:24/ 2:15:22/ 1:22:29)
• 2. Hannah Berry (NZL) 4:06:28 (23:37/ 2:14:58/ 1:23:13)
• 3. Grace Thek (AUS) 4:07:41 (24:29/ 2:19:25/ 1:18:59)
• 4. Regan Hollioake (AUS) 4:10:18 (24:24/ 2:14:12/ 1:26:43)
• 5. Chloe Lane (AUS) 4:14:54 (24:25/ 2:19:19/ 1:25:59)

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