Australian based Liz Blatchford has won Ironman Cairns on debut after one of the great women’s battles to be seen in an Ironman. Four weeks ago Blatchford had made a decision that she was not well enough to race at Cairns. “After winning Busselton 70.3 I was very sick and run down. I raced Busselton with some sort of virus. I shouldn’t have but I thought I would be okay. Once I made the decision that Cairns was not going to be possible the pressure was off and I started to improve.”