Chris McCormack (Macca) wins Challenge Cairns 2011

As predicted by Pete Jacobs the day before the race Macca won and White was second. Chris McCormack wins Cairns Airport Challenge Cairns in style after being over 3mins down in the swim. As predicted Fettell, followed very closely by Graham O'Grady, lead the swim and hit the bike with a solid

As predicted by Pete Jacobs the day before the race Macca won and White was second. Chris McCormack wins Cairns Airport Challenge Cairns in style after being over 3mins down in the swim.

As predicted Fettell, followed very closely by Graham O’Grady, lead the swim and hit the bike with a solid early lead. It didn’t take Macca long however to catch Clayton Fettell and New Zealand’s Graham O’Grady on the bike. Once caught the three rode the rest of the 180kms together. McCormack powered out of T2 to take an early advantage and make the rest of the field work hard to catch him. They never did.

McCormack’s performance at Challenge Cairns was clinical and he knew that he always had the race covered. Whilst his current form leading in to the race was not as well known those that knew him saw that the signs were there for a win. Macca caught the two leads guys fairly quickly but didn’t pull away as expected. He knew where he was and who he was racing and calculated exactly what he had to do to win.

The chase pack on the bike never made inroads in the the three leaders. The talk was that Matty White was doing a lot of the work in this group. The group consisted of Matty White, Tim Berkel, Dvid Dellow and Jonathan Hotchkiss. They remained around 4:30 to 6mins down for the entire ride.

Off the bike only just over 6mins separated the top seven overall finishers. McCormack pushed hard from the start and looked comfortable for the entire run. Early leader on the bike, Graham O’Grady hit the run feeling good and settled in to a steady pace until the 6km mark where he felt like he was ‘hit over the back with a baseball back’. The next 22kms were brutal and O’Grady hung in there until he started feeling cold in the 30 degrees heat. At this point he knew he had to pull out and seek medical help. In hindsight O’Grady says that he would have rather sat by the roadside eating and drinking for two hours and then walked to the finish. The good thing about the race for Graham was that everything was perfect apart from a case of salt depletion.

Tim Berkel pushed hard to run through the field and got as far as Matty White but he had used up all he had to catch Matty and fell back with one lap of the run to go. White looked fresh at the end while Berkel was out for the count.


At the start of the run Kiwi Jamie Whyte slipped back to 8th early in the run due to the fast pace the
ensued from the start. He had his own plan and knew that he would pick
up some places as the day wore on. He finally caught Fettell in the late
stages of the run and they ran shoulder to shoulder for a while before Whyte pulled away to take 4th overall.

Clayton Fettell’s result was outstanding considering he only decided to enter the race (his first ever iron distance race) on Friday. Not many people get to Friday and think ‘What shall I do this weekend…? Maybe I will race an Iron distance triathlon’. Nice day at the office Clayton!

It was a good day at the office for the team from Aeromax Team who are trained by Grant Giles. 2nd, 3rd, 5th in the long race, 1st in the women’s half and 2nd in the men’s half.

PosCat PosNameTimeCatSwimCycleRun
11Christopher McCormack8:15:56M-Elite0:47:264:34:562:51:00
22Matty White8:28:36M-Elite0:49:304:38:242:57:55
33Tim Berkel8:29:20M-Elite0:49:284:39:082:57:44
44Jamie Whyte8:35:07M-Elite0:49:284:38:213:04:23
55Clayton FETTELL8:36:14M-Elite0:43:484:38:153:10:59
66David Dellow8:41:39M-Elite0:46:024:41:543:10:22
77Jonathan Hotchkiss8:42:49M-Elite0:50:294:37:163:11:57
81Mike Le Roux9:13:41M-35-390:52:244:57:503:18:46
91Paul Wiedersehn9:14:42M-25-290:47:245:03:343:19:21
108Chris Dmitrieff9:17:03M-Elite0:52:515:13:473:06:09
111Hayden Armstrong9:18:21M-30-340:52:055:03:183:19:03
132Rob Creasy9:29:00M-30-340:49:215:08:133:27:38
142Brad Wall9:30:35M-25-290:51:355:07:473:27:07
171Scott Foreman9:36:20M-40-441:00:435:11:243:19:51
181Kevin Fergusson9:36:35M-50-540:51:384:59:263:41:07
193Jarrod OWEN9:36:57M-25-290:57:255:27:293:07:32
202Darren FRANKEN9:38:23M-40-440:55:085:03:203:34:12
212Troy Ward9:39:03M-35-390:55:575:02:533:34:11
223Matt Webster9:41:08M-35-390:57:025:16:113:22:01
231Todd Spackman9:43:02M-20-240:59:125:15:013:24:44
264Anthony Parker9:46:28M-35-390:48:095:07:593:45:21
283Steven Newman9:50:38M-30-341:01:514:56:273:47:58
295Steven Schofield9:51:56M-35-390:53:275:02:203:51:39
314Andrew Bagnall9:52:57M-30-341:02:255:16:413:24:15
323Gary Bryant9:56:31M-40-441:03:035:10:173:38:24
335Mark Timbs9:56:59M-30-340:57:175:04:553:49:22
341Rodney HALL9:58:27M-45-490:59:515:20:543:31:49
356Chris WEIER10:00:09M-35-390:54:515:11:553:44:34
366Anthony Hartley10:01:12M-30-341:03:275:15:213:36:25
372Christopher Keogh10:02:12M-20-240:51:175:06:244:00:34
387Shannon Johanson10:03:59M-30-340:57:415:12:483:46:55
394Chris Moor10:04:21M-25-290:56:145:25:523:38:52
415Geoffrey Emslie10:04:31M-25-290:58:015:04:313:56:45
428Adam Mclaine10:04:43M-30-340:57:564:59:474:00:58
439Jack Duncan10:05:36M-30-341:01:285:12:013:47:31
457Brett Pidgeon10:06:38M-35-390:55:545:17:393:46:39
463Eric Watson10:07:15M-20-240:48:035:32:183:39:22
4710Leon Bowes10:07:28M-30-341:00:345:16:293:42:05
488Scott Lawton10:07:57M-35-390:55:055:13:043:51:19
496Samuel Stedman10:12:50M-25-291:10:545:19:393:37:25
519Nick Potter10:14:35M-35-391:03:455:04:564:01:01
5211Brendon Brauer10:17:27M-30-340:57:065:15:443:52:40
5312Kirron Duncan10:19:21M-30-340:59:445:18:133:56:44
5410Jason Marino10:19:31M-35-390:55:515:20:163:58:06
552Allan Moustoukas10:19:52M-50-540:59:535:13:413:59:01
5611Chris Dale10:20:13M-35-391:02:315:18:443:52:59
574Michael Lennon10:21:32M-40-440:53:385:36:453:44:09
585Andrew Morris10:21:35M-40-441:06:025:23:083:47:11
5913Paul MCROBERT10:21:55M-30-340:56:035:02:084:17:52
6012Simon Hunt10:22:04M-35-391:03:435:17:313:54:16
6114Luke Colthup10:23:16M-30-340:51:065:07:234:17:25
623Bruce McClintock10:24:05M-50-541:02:565:20:013:54:21
634Amos Gollach10:24:22M-20-241:02:155:24:283:50:17
6513Michael Keyte10:24:42M-35-391:07:325:44:153:28:13
667Neil Culkin10:24:44M-25-291:04:005:22:353:50:41
676James Bell10:25:14M-40-441:01:105:37:453:39:08
6815Nathan DUNKLEY10:25:18M-30-340:53:284:59:224:21:48
695Michael Harvey10:25:22M-20-240:51:005:27:294:02:12
7014Ian Blaiklock10:26:04M-35-391:05:305:19:493:50:09
7216Jason McNamara10:27:09M-30-341:08:365:25:093:46:01
738Brendon Costigan10:28:19M-25-291:02:575:35:403:40:37
749Hayden Lyons10:28:28M-25-291:00:235:30:463:52:40
7517Peter Hughes10:28:51M-30-340:52:495:23:054:07:55
7615Justin Goddard10:29:55M-35-391:07:445:28:403:45:46
7710Mark Scott10:30:02M-25-291:01:005:22:213:59:26
782Shane Flannery10:31:28M-45-491:02:135:36:053:47:28
797Paul Turner10:31:33M-40-440:52:545:04:544:30:04
8018Elliot McCarthy10:31:51M-30-340:59:435:33:093:49:11
8116Angus Boyd10:32:00M-35-391:06:115:33:063:48:25
828Johannes Wevers10:33:00M-40-440:52:445:26:074:07:28
8317Travis Tremayne10:33:06M-35-391:05:035:16:084:06:56
8419Justin Schweikert10:34:36M-30-340:54:515:50:473:43:25
859Robert Walker10:35:47M-40-440:56:275:14:334:18:33
8611Heath Porter10:35:50M-25-291:00:215:24:084:00:26
8712Christopher Lenton10:36:36