Gregory Rouault and Gwen Jorgensen spoil Australia Day for the Aussies in Wollongong

France's Gregory Rouault and USA's Gwen Jorgensen spoiled the Australia Day celebrations for the locals at Wollongong's traditional annual aquathon today. We don't often see fields like this in Australia with some serious fire power on display both local and overseas. It was

France’s Gregory Rouault and USA’s Gwen Jorgensen spoiled the Australia Day celebrations for the locals at Wollongong’s traditional annual aquathon today. We don’t often see fields like this in Australia with some serious fire power on display both local and overseas.

It was another successful Australia Day Aquathon by Rob Battochio and his team. The weather was perfect and with the new beach footpath in place there was no Cliff Rd hill to negotiate. Something most not blessed with outstanding running genes were happy about.

As mentioned above Gregory Rouault won the men’s race with USA’s Matt Chrabot coming in second to push U23 world champ Aaron Royle in to third. Right on Royle’s heels was Ryan Bailie with Cronulla’s Michael Murphy 5th. Murphy has been racing the Elite Energy triseries with a win in December at Callala. Murphy is going to test the long course waters with Geelong on his radar.

The Olympic triathlon team’s Brendan Sexton was 6th just edging out David Mainwaring. Also seen having a sneaky hit out after a very successful Auckland 70.3 last weekend was Cronulla’s Paul Ambrose. Ambrose rode down from Sydney for the aquathon. He heads off on Wednesday to race the Panama 70.3. This is a championship race and offers the same amount of points as the race in Auckland last weekend so there is a huge incentive for Ambrose to do well. Australia’s Richie Cunningham will also be racing.

Also featuring were James Davy, Ben Allen and Matthew Pellow in the top 20 along with local age grouper Scott Ashcroft mixing it with the speedsters. Matthew Pellow spent some time training and racing in the US last year and will no doubt be back for the main races in Australia this season with longer distances on the radar.

In the women’s race it was a sprint finish Gwen Jorgensen just edging out Jodie Stimpson by one second. The two top five finishers at last years ITU World Cup final in Auckland were too quick for the local ITU juniors. Filling out the podium was local Grace Musgrove with Ashlee Bailie home in fourth. Natalie Van Coevorden was next home in fifth place followed by Anna Maria Mazzetti   and Charlotte McShane next.

The NSWIS ITU athletes have all spent the last month in a big training block under Jamie Turner and the team at Falls Creek in preparation for 2013. They are are all putting in the final touches to their race preparations before heading down to the season’s first ITU race in Devonport. Following this race they will be heading to New Zealand for the next round at Wellington.

Race Website. Don’t forget the Splash ‘n’ Dash Festival is on Feb 23-24 at Wollongong.

Male

Pos Name (#) Time Categ (Pos) Gender (Pos) Swim Run
1 Gregory ROUAULT (222) 0:38:02 Open (1) Male (1) 0:15:19 0:22:43
2 Matt CHRABOT (9) 0:38:09 Open (2) Male (2) 0:15:13 0:22:55
3 Aaron ROYLE (545) 0:38:47 Open (3) Male (3) 0:14:54 0:23:53
4 Ryan BAILIE (4) 0:38:48 20-29 Years (1) Male (4) 8:43:03
5 Michael MURPHY (44) 0:39:05 20-29 Years (2) Male (5) 0:14:54 0:24:11
6 Brendan SEXTON (1345) 0:39:36 20-29 Years (3) Male (6) 0:15:23 0:24:13
7 David MAINWARING (1351) 0:39:49 20-29 Years (4) Male (7) 0:15:52 0:23:57
8 Anthony MCSWEENEY (38) 0:40:10 20-29 Years (5) Male (8) 0:15:27 0:24:43
9 James DAVY (1354) 0:40:25 20-29 Years (6) Male (9) 0:15:26 0:24:58
10 Brady GOODYEAR (24) 0:40:42 U20 Years (1) Male (10) 0:15:30 0:25:11
11 Ben ALLEN (1) 0:41:04 20-29 Years (7) Male (11) 0:15:08 0:25:56
14 Jake MONTGOMERY (42) 0:41:10 U20 Years (2) Male (12) 0:15:44 0:25:25
15 Matthew PELLOW (1336) 0:41:48 20-29 Years (8) Male (13) 0:16:19 0:25:29
18 Scott ASHCROFT (114) 0:43:04 30-39 Years (1) Male (14) 0:17:49 0:25:15
19 Paul AMBROSE (2) 0:43:11 20-29 Years (9) Male (15) 0:15:26 0:27:45
20 Nathan BREEN (8) 0:43:14 U20 Years (3) Male (16) 0:15:30 0:27:44

Female

Pos Name (#) Time Categ (Pos) Gender (Pos) Swim Run
12 Gwen JORGENSEN (291) 0:41:07 Open (1) Female (1) 0:16:08 0:24:59
13 Jodie Lee SIMPSON (317) 0:41:08 Open (2) Female (2) 0:16:06 0:25:01
16 Grace MUSGROVE (305) 0:42:42 Open (3) Female (3) 0:16:23 0:26:19
17 Ashlee BAILIE (259) 0:43:00 20-29 Years (1) Female (4) 0:16:21 0:26:39
21 Natalie VAN COEVORDEN (334) 0:44:18 20-29 Years (2) Female (5) 0:16:13 0:28:04
22 Anna Maria MAZZETTI (298) 0:44:48 20-29 Years (3) Female (6) 0:16:36 0:28:12
23 Charlotte MCSHANE (301) 0:45:42 20-29 Years (4) Female (7) 0:17:09 0:28:32
28 Jacqui SLACK (319) 0:47:10 20-29 Years (5) Female (8) 0:17:48 0:29:22
31 Laura COOK (270) 0:47:43 U20 Years (1) Female (9) 0:16:37 0:31:05
32 Emma JEFFCOAT (290) 0:47:43 U20 Years (2) Female (10) 0:16:33 0:31:10
40 Megan ISBESTER (287) 0:49:27 U20 Years (3) Female (11) 0:20:07 0:29:20
42 Abby TOZER (332) 0:49:47 U20 Years (4) Female (12) 0:21:09 0:28:37
48 Natalie LINDER (295) 0:50:18 U20 Years (5) Female (13) 0:19:22 0:30:56
51 Lorna WHITE (337) 0:50:26 20-29 Years (6) Female (14) 0:20:57 0:29:28
58 Emma JAMIESON (288) 0:51:16 30-39 Years (1) Female (15) 0:18:11 0:33:05
59 Trudi BARNES (261) 0:51:22 30-39 Years (2) Female (16) 0:18:31 0:32:51
61 Heather SINCLAIR (318) 0:51:26 20-29 Years (7) Female (17) 0:24:02 0:27:24
66 Elisha BELL (262) 0:51:31 30-39 Years (3) Female (18) 0:21:54 0:29:37
68 Angie SHARP (315) 0:51:34 30-39 Years (4) Female (19) 0:18:22 0:33:11
70 Carol WHITBREAD (361) 0:51:39 40-49 Years (1) Female (20) 0:21:09 0:30:29