Pete Jacobs wins Ironman Australia 2011

In a dominating performance from start to finish it was the ‘Pete Jacobs Show’ today as he lead out of the water by almost three minutes after being 1:30 ahead of the rest of the field at the quarter mark in the swim. He then went on to almost have the fastest bike of the day. Mitch Anderson upstaged him on the bike by around 15seconds.

Jacobs was suffering from a foot injury so didn’t put in his usual fast run and was outpaced on the run by second placed Patrick Vernay, Jason Shortis (3rd) and and Scott Neyedli (4th). Jacobs backed off on the run with the finish line getting closer due to his foot which explains the time.

Pete spent a lot of time high fiving the fans down the finish shoot and was embraced by his incredibly excited parents after crossing the finish line. Jacobs jubilation was there for all to see and winning Ironman Australia for the first time obviously meant a lot to him.

Four time winner Patrick Vernay was just over six minute behind Jacobs.

A crowd favourite on the day was Jason Shortis’s 3rd place. He raced a superb race and finished strongly out running the Scot Scott Neyedli by just over a minute after they both swam and rode the same times.

2010 Ironman WA winner Courtney Ogden was left wondering what might have been after suffering two punctures on the bike and ending up riding the last couple of kms on two flat tyres. Courtney lead the main swim pack behind Jaocbs for most of the swim and put himself in to a good postion as they headed for the first transition. “I found myself leading the chase pack, and continued to lead the pack
until about 200-300m to swim. At this time, the surge for T1 began, and
my competitors started to make moves to get out of the water at the head
of the group and start the chase on the cycle leg. There wasn’t much I
could do about that, I still felt ok, but after leading the group for so
long, it was no surprise that the others had a bit more in the tank for
a fast finish. I got onto the bike feeling fatigued after the effort of
the swim, and it took me a while to get going. Although I got out of
the water close to the front, it wasn’t long before I had dropped a
significant amount of time to the likes Patrick, Adam Holborow, Scott
Neyedli and one or two others.”

Out on the bike Courtney held his own until coming back in to town past the golf club when his first piece of bad luck struck. He ended up having to change wheels sith the aid of the Shimano guys. Once off the bike and out on to the run Courtney set about reeling in the competitors ahead. “It didn’t take me long to get into a rhythm on the run, and I felt great for most of the first 30 kilometres of the run, before starting to lose some enthusiasm during the latter stages and slowing down as a result. I noticed early that catching PJ and Patrick was out of the question, but the others were within reach under the right circumstances.”

“I was able to pass a few of the guys who got off the bike in front of me “Scott Curry about 22 kilometres into the run and then Mitch at about 32km to move myself into fifth place. At this point I had moved to within a minute of Neyedli, but he had seen me coming and put in a surge to move away again, finishing some 2 minutes 30 seconds in front at the finish. Shortis was running at about the same pace as I was and I never really got a sniff of catching him, so I had to be content with a fifth place finish on the day.”

Courtney’s next race will be Eagleman 70.3 in the USA. He is racing this one straight off the plane so it could be a challenging race for Ogden. The rest of his year will look something like this: Muncie 70.3, Ironman Lake Placid, Steelman/or Timber 70.3, Syracuse 70.3, Hawaii Ironman, Busselton Ironman – we can’t let an “age grouper” win that one!

“I am not really concentrating on anything in particular with my training/racing at present, just trying to get the balance between cycle and run training correct, which can be a challenge sometimes.”

Courtney is off to Busselton this weekend but not as a competitor (as you would expect). He will be cheering on his wife and about 14 triathletes that he coaches who will be competing.

Craig Alexander watched the race and was on the finish line to congratulate Jacobs. I was speaking to Crowie afterwards and he said he was really struggling to watch when this was the year he planned to race. The last time he trained was the day after I saw him at the Triathlon Australia awards night over 3 weeks ago. His doctor has said no training for at least another 3-4 weeks. This has thrown his year into disarray and he is now trying to figure out how he is going to qualify for Kona. He now has to sit out the next few weeks and then start training for an ironman race that he is yet to find.

Great to see him cheering on the age grouper finishers till late.

It was great to see a big brand like Toyota get behind Ironman Australia. I am sure Craig’s association with Toyota made this sponsorship possible. We don’t have many high profile athletes that get the sort of main stream media that Crowie does and it is good to see these sort of brands get involved in the sport.