New Zealand’s Sam Osborne and Brisbane’s Ellie Salthouse crossed the finishing line in first place at IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong on Sunday March 24.
Osborne headed into Sunday’s race having never been on an IRONMAN 70.3 podium before, taking the win in 3:41:25, 11 seconds clear of Great Britain’s Thomas Bishop, with Finland’s Henrik Goesch a minute further behind in third.
The trio made it the first all-international podium at IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong, with Osborne securing back-to-back Kiwi victories after Mike Phillips won last year.
“I can hardly believe it, the goal was to come here and get a World’s slot and I feel like I’ve been close the last couple of times and then I saw the start list here and I thought jeez I’m really going to have my work cut out for me,” said Osborne.
“I came off the bike and this was the first time that I’ve come off the bike at the front, I come from an off-road tri background so I’m used to the mountain bike so the aero bars can be punishing but I’ve spent heaps of time on the TT bike recently just trying to get used to it which I think paid off.”
Salthouse claimed her second IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong victory, crossing the line in 4:07:18, less than a minute ahead of Melbourne’s Grace Thek, with Dutch athlete Lotte Wilms rounding out the podium.
“It was a bit of a slow day to get going for me today, not the best swim, a little bit of an average bike but I had to back my run out there today,” Salthouse said.
“We all came off together with a couple up the road and I had to back myself and had a great run, one of my fastest ever so stoked with where my running is at the moment.
“It’s great, I consider this kind of a home race, considering all of my family live down here, they’re all here today watching so it’s extra special to have them on the sidelines when I win.
“It’s always incredible here, I love that you get to run through the main part of Geelong a couple of times on each lap, you get to have all of the crowd support, all of the family support, everyone cheering, the run course is unlike any other, it’s pretty much lined with spectators the whole way. The bike course is a little bit lonely out there but there’s always so many people up the top of the hill, it spurs you on a little bit at the halfway point.”
