Michelle Wu and Ollie Whistler win the Crowne Plaza Canberra City Half Ironman Triathlon

Ollie Whistler won the Crowne Plaza Canberra City Half Ironman with a dominating bike leg and maintained his momentum throughout the half marathon. Michelle Wu went head to head with Lisa Marangon, a swim specialist, on the first 4km run and the bike and then put the accelerator down as she exited T2 and that was where she won the race. Luke Whitmore was second almost 6 minutes behind Ollie with Richard Munroe a further 12 seconds back. New to pro racing, Matilda Raynolds placed 3rd with the bike being the difference between her and Marangon.

Michelle Wu backed up from a 4th place last weekend in Phuket at the Asia-Pacific 70.3 championship.

Top 20 male and female results below.

The worlds last ever ‘half ironman’ never really happened. What ended up taking place was a duathlon. To top it off there was also a bike course change due to road flooding. This meant almost 1000 triathletes were on a 17km loop. It was very tight. The race officials were aware of what this meant and were very fair during the race.

Considering the circumstances Nick Munting and X-Tri did a wonderful job and the race was enjoyed by everyone there. Commentary was great as always with Matty Harris entertaining us all day.

When everyone heard that the bike course had changed and there was going to be no Coppins Crossing hill there was an air of excitement and everyone started talking about a flat bike. Gold Coast is flat. This was not. Throw in a fair bit of head wind as you headed out from transition all the way to the end of the lake and the bike was actually very tough.

Most were not quite sure how fast to go out on the first run and what affect it would have on the second run. The half marathon had a lot of head wind and ended up being a solid run. The only hill was fairly tame.

We spoke to Lisa Marangon today about the race and what her thoughts were on not having the swim (a known strength of Lisas). “I have just started with a new coach and my focus is swimming at the moment. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t test it out as I have built some speed in the water recently. We can’t control the circumstances and safety is more important. I was very nervous before this race as all the girls I was racing against are strong runners. I’m so used to being out in front from the swim”.

Lisa has not been doing much long riding recently which would have had an impact on her half marathon. “My longest ride recently was Hawaii (early October) and I have only done a few 90min runs. I have raced a lot recently instead. My race was more of a training run for me. It wasn’t a key race”.

“In saying that I was very happy with my result as Michelle is in peak race form and I knew she would be really hard to beat. I thought I would be able to ride away from her but she has really improved her strength and she stuck with me. It was also so good to see Ollie take his first win as I  know how hard he has worked to get to this level”.

Lisa also praised the team behind the race. “The X-Tri team did an amazing job considering they had to change so much of the race. Triathlon is a growing sport and seeing how many people are taking on the challenge is amazing”.

For now Lisa will enjoy some down time then will build up for Devonport. “ITU world here I come!”