Sarah Crowley Headlines Women’s Field At Ironman Australia

Sarah Crowley finished third at the IRONMAN World Championship in Hawaii in 2019, has made the decision to forgo her spot on the start line at next week’s IRONMAN World Championship in Utah, and commit to racing at home after a disjointed last year and a half.

The decision has allowed Crowley to settle into a routine and work back towards the form that saw her on the podium at the top level of the sport before the pandemic.

“It’s probably one of the first times in a few years that I’ve felt like I’ve trained hard enough that I need a taper and I’ll get the benefit of the taper so I’m actually really looking forward to Port Macquarie,” said Crowley. “My last IRONMAN was in Tulsa in May last year, the good thing about being home in Australia is that I’ve been able to replicate some of the training that we’ve done in the past leading into some of my great performances, being home and settled has allowed me to nut down and get some decent training done. I know that when we get those certain sessions done it will align to a really good race and past performances are a predictor of future, I’m looking forward to what that looks like this year.”

While Crowley will have one eye on the World Championship next weekend she knows that the decision to remain in Australia is the right one for getting the most out of her performances.

“Come May 7 I’m sure I will want to be there and I know I’ll feel a little bit left out because it’s obviously the World Championship and the pinnacle of the sport, but for me personally I had a very disrupted 18 months and when my coach and I discussed whether we would do St. George I think we were putting too much on the line in a sense of my career, to try and push to get there,” she said. “I know I would probably get to the level of a top 10 result but we don’t do it for that, we aim higher and I think I would have been disappointed and it would have been more of same. So, what we’ve done is knuckle down and build a progressive season so that we can hit later in the year harder. I was kind of relieved when he said that it would be a good idea not to do it in a funny way because I knew we could then put together a plan to execute a better season come October.”

Lining up alongside Crowley is New Zealand’s Rebecca Clarke who will be the sole Kiwi in the women’s field but plans to make her presence felt strongly on Australian turf.

“Wherever you’re from, you do have a home advantage and we haven’t been able to use that home advantage too much,” said Clarke. “Coming to Australia we have a little bit more, the travel and things, and also the environment. I think I struggled a bit with that at IRONMAN Cairns last year, we talk about humid Auckland but it’s a lot more humid over there. I don’t think Port Mac is quite as humid. I was a bit disappointed with Cairns last year so just want to make sure I do the things I didn’t do right there. It would mean a lot.”

Putting into practice what she’s learnt about racing in Australia, the 2021 IRONMAN New Zealand runner up is aiming for a top-two finish and a spot at the 2022 IRONMAN World Championships in Hawaii on 6 October.

“I think for IRONMAN athletes, the World Champs in Kona is the goal, so it’s something that I will be targeting. It hasn’t been on for a couple of years so it’s going to be a big one. I’m hoping to have a good race at IRONMAN Australia and put myself forward for that,” said Clarke.

Joining the pair on the start line on Sunday is Cairns based athlete Sarah Thomas. Thomas will start her third IRONMAN as a professional at IRONMAN Australia, after making her debut at the Cairns Airport IRONMAN Asia-Pacific Championship Cairns last June, and finishing second at GWM IRONMAN Western Australia in December.

Racing at the National Storage IRONMAN Australia starts at 7.08am on Sunday, with the first female finisher expected at approximately 4.15pm.

IRONMAN Australia – Female Professional Start List

1 – Sarah Crowley

2 – Rebecca Clarke

3 – Sarah Thomas

4 – Shannon Sutton

5 – Courtney Gilfillan

6 – Moya Johansson