Liz Blatchford takes out the PEARL iZUMi Huskisson Long Course Triathlon 2013

After leading out of the swim by almost a minute Liz Blatchford lost time on the first lap of the bike to find herself almost a minute down to Lisa Marangon. Lisa Marangon went in to this race with the plan to leave nothing out on the bike course knowing that Liz Blatchford was going to put in a very strong run and she wasted no time when on the bike.

After the first of three bike laps Marangon had around a 50second gap over Blatchford which was extended to 1:10 by the time the lead women headed out on to the run.

Talked about as potentially one of the top 70.3 athletes in the world, Blatchford has notched up a few big 70.3 wins overseas and finished 8^th overall at Hy-Vee 2012. “I was a little disappointed with Hy-Vee last year. After having such a great build up the 8^th didn’t really reflect where I was at. I didn’t have my run legs on that day. As soon as I hopped of my bike in T2 I knew it was not going to be my day.”

Blatchford won Ironman 70.3 Boulder and Ironman 70.3 Cozumel last year amomgst many great results.

At Huskisson today Blatchford had her run legs on and despite losing time to Marangon on the bike she looked very relaxed heading out of T2 and on to the run. By the time the women came back past transition after about 9kms on the run Blatchford had a comfortable 45 second lead and was looking like she was enjoying the race and the crowds.

In the end it was a very happy Liz Blatchford who took out the 2013 title four minutes ahead of Lisa Marangon.

For Marangon a few days in bed last weekend with the flu made her a little apprehensive about whether she would be good for Huskisson. “On Wednesday I still couldn’t breath through my nose but thankfully by Thursday I felt much better and come Sunday the rest may have been good. I never felt 100% on the run which is not good when you are racing someone like Liz.”

Swimming and riding strongly was Kat Baker who also moved past Blatchford on the bike also. Andrea Oracki had a great race and Michelle Wu had the fastest run of the day for the women with a 1:18. Nicole Ward and Wu had very similar swim/bike times. Normally Ward would have been out of the swim a minute or two ahead of Wu however Ward raced the entire race with vision in only one eye. “I got a really bad kick to the eye in the swim. It seem that I must have got some anti fog on my eye and I could only see out of my right eye for the entire race. It made for a couple of interesting times on the run course.” Ward was last seeing walk around the race precinct with a patch over it.

In the women’s 35-39 age group we saw one of the great races of the day. World ITU Olympic Distance age group champ Melinda Cockshutt, Jacinta Worland and   Katherine Mackay were all old foes and they raced hard for the podium spots. Eventually Mel Cockshutt took the race three and a half minutes ahead of Jacinta with Katherine 38seconds back.