Photo credit: Delly Carr 

Queenslanders Josh Amberger and Sarah Crowley put together a perfect race at the Cairns Airport Ironman in Cairns on the weekend, both smashing the course record and taking the win.

With a host of 70.3 wins to both of their names, this was the first Ironman win for both Amberger and Crowley.

 

"This race is pay off for all the work we have been doing. I won the IRONMAN 70.3 Middle East Championship Bahrain at the back end of last season but it hasn’t got the status of a Regional Championship. This is definitely my best result" says Crowley.

 

Winning the Asia Pacific Championship gives both Amberger and Crowley an automatic entry into the Pro field at Kona (bypassing the Kona Pro Raking system used to allocate spots).

Cairns put on an almost perfect weather day (especially in comparison to recent race days), with the rain holding off.  Approximately 1000 age groupers took on the full ironman course,

 

Josh Amberger: 8:02:16 - 0:47:14 swim/4:17:28 bike/2:35:25 run

 

Sarah Crowley: 8:58:13 - 0:57:05 swim/4:49:59 bike/3:06:00 run

In the age group only Ironman 70.3 race, the women's race was won by Queenslander Madi Roberts.  Despite focussing on shorter distance events for most of the past year, Roberts perfected her pacing and held on to win after taking the lead on the bike leg.

 

Full Ironman results can be found here