Craig Alexander wins Australian Long Course Triathlon Championship 2010

Huskisson and Elite Energy turned on an almost perfect weekend for the 2010 Jervis Bay Multi Sport Festival. The main race of the weekend was the Australian Long Course Triathlon Championships

with the 700 triathletes who completed this great triathlon, enduring a soaring temperature that really kicked in during the 20km run leg.

The hot temperature did nothing to slow down the pro athletes who put on a great show for the huge crowd of supporters and age groupers.

The pro male wave started at 7:00am with the women going a minute later. There was some early confusion about the swim course with the males splitting in to two groups and heading off in different directions. Pete Jacobs was one of the group that went to the left on the correct course. The other group quickly sorted themselves out and came back, probably only losing about 10-15 seconds.

Clayton Fettell smoked the swim in a time of 23:10 coming out of the water

over half a minute ahead of the second group which included last year’s winner Pete Jacobs, Matthew Bailey, and Charlie Boyle. A further minute back were Adrian Cominotto, Craig Alexander, Christian Kemp, Joseph Lampe, Jemani Francis and Adam Holborow. The last bunch included Mitchell Robins, Lindsay Wall, Joel Cooke, Tim Berkel and Ollie Whistler who exited a further half a minute to a minute later. Adrian Clegg withdrew from the race after the swim. Both Chris Dmitrieff and Jason Shortis were scheduled to race but withdrew prior.

Clayton Fettell backed up his swim with an impressive 1:59 on the bike. Unfortunately he later pulled out of the race after starting the run. Pete Jacobs showed once again how strong he is on the bike with a 2:00:30 to be a minute faster than Holborow and Alexander. A further four minutes covered the rest of the field on the bike.

The run proved to be the decider on Sunday with Craig Alexander showing why he is the current Ironman World Champion with a 67 minute 20km run time, passing Jacobs with less than ten minutes to go to finally take out the race and finish one minute ahead of Pete. Alexander’s run was over three minutes faster then Jacobs. Christian Kemp was on a mission to make up the more than three minutes that Jacobs had put on him during the swim and bike legs. He almost made it finishing just 10 seconds behind Jacobs. Kemp, a renowned runner, had a great race and will be a tough challenger to Jacobs and Alexander in the future.

Pete Jacobs had a tough week which included coming back from Abu Dhabi, finishing a landscaping job and using a brand new bike on which he had only one hour of riding prior to Sunday’s race.