Aaron Royle and Emma Moffatt win Atmosphere Nepean Triathlon 2015

For the third year in a row Aaron Royle has won the Atmosphere Nepean Triathlon adding his name to the history books once again in Australia's oldest triathlon. Emma Moffatt won the title for the second time after she won in 2013.

Aaron Royle and Emma Moffatt win Atmosphere Nepean Triathlon 2015

The women’s race was a close affair with Moffatt and Ashleigh Gentle running together until about 2/3’s of the way in to the run. Gentle had pushed ahead and was starting to put some space between  herself and Moffatt when she was struck by a bout of vertigo and momentarily became dizzy, running in to a barrier. This gave Moffatt the break and she never looked back finishing very strongly. Gentle  took a breather and got her senses back then continued running home in second. This was an expensive bout of dizziness  potentially costing Gentle $8000. Chasing the two senior Australian ITU athletes were Natalie Van Coevorden and Charlotte McShane with these two swimming very well to be placed strongly at the front of the field out of the water. On to the bike and Gentle quickly made up the small deficit from the swim and along with Moffatt and Van Coevorden set the pace on the bike for the rest of the race.

Out on to the run Moffatt and Gentle were now racing for 1st and 2nd with Van Coevorden holding  a solid position in 3rd. McShane was feeling the lack of training and saw the British triathlete Emma Pallant and fellow Australian Melinda Vernon eventually over take her. Both Pallant and Vernon ran very well posting 34 and 35 min 10km runs respectively.

POS NAME (#) TIME
12 EMMA MOFFATT  (4) 01:35:30
14 ASHLEIGH GENTLE  (1) 01:36:50
17 NATALIE VAN COEVORDEN  (30) 01:37:22
20 EMMA PALLANT  (6) 01:38:46
23 MELINDA VERNON  (31) 01:39:59
28 CHARLOTTE MCSHANE  (20) 01:40:39
34 ELLIE SALTHOUSE  (26) 01:43:19
44 SARAH LESTER  (18) 01:45:29
49 GEORGIA STOTT  (29) 01:46:12
80 Hannah DONALDSON  (927) 01:50:43

Nepean Triathlon Men’s Results

In the men’s race Royle was never in doubt from the gun. He put a just over half a minute in to  Ryan Fisher, Ben Shaw and Matt Baker out of the water and proceeded to place more time between himself and the chasers on the bike posting the fastest bike split of the day to add to his swim lead. On to the run and Royle had a good lead but behind was a determined Jacob Birtwhistle and Ryan Fisher. Birtwhistle posted a very fast bike time taking advantage of 7th placed Matthew Pellow’s speed on the TT. Pellow  and Birtwhistle pushed each other to bridge up to  Fisher, Shaw and Baker at about the 20km mark.  The last 10kms on the bike was more a matter of working out how to out run Birtwhsitle with Fisher the main contender in the pack.

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Out on to the run and Royle just had to keep a steady pace and make sure that Birtwhistle and Fisher did not catch him. Unknown to everyone Royle was nursing a sore lower calf on the run. This injury would eventually put him out of this weekend’s Noosa Triathlon and the following weekend’s rich race in the Bahamas.

The final scoreboard showed very fast runs from Birtwhistle, Fisher, Sexton and long course triathlete David Mainwaring. All four went under 32mins for the 10kms.

Matthew Pellow showed a continuation of his good form from Port Macquarie where he swam and rode with the leaders and apart from a  hole in the middle of the run came home strong. This weekend’s shorter race gave him the opportunity to  get some more speed in to those legs. Pellow is looking good for this summer. Keep en eye on him.

 

POS NAME (#) TIME
1 AARON ROYLE (2) 01:28:22
2 JACOB BIRTWHISTLE (12) 01:28:34
3 Ryan FISHER (8) 01:28:45
4 Matt BAKER (7) 01:29:24
5 BRENDAN SEXTON (27) 01:30:02
6 BEN SHAW(28) 01:30:40
7 MATTHEW PELLOW (23) 01:31:13
8 DAVID MAINWARING (19) 01:31:50
9 KIERAN ROCHE (25) 01:33:14
10 STUART HAYES (5) 01:33:40