McMahon and Betten emerged from the swim 1-2 with 23:45 and 23:42 splits 2 minutes ahead of Brown and 4 minutes up on Mat Burton. McMahon and Betten separated themselves from the field with the two best bike splits - 2:14:21 and 2:14:17. Then McMahon turned on his Olympic short course speed – 1:17:59 to Betten’s 1:26:03 -- and the fight was over. McMahon finished in 3:59:05 with an 8:25 margin of victory over Betten and 16:39 over an off-form Cam Brown.

“It’s tough coming from a New Zealand winter with temps around 14-15 Celsius and then trying to run in 35 C!” write Brown in a post-race blog. My last few kilometers were survival and there was the occasional walk through the aid stations to try to get my body temperature down by throwing buckets of cold water over my head!”