Alexander and Steffen win Ironman Melbourne

Australia’s Craig Alexander and Switzerland’s Caroline Steffen won the inaugural Ironman Melbourne today.

Alexander came out of the water in 11^th position, then paired with New Zealand’s Cameron Brown to pace each other to the top two bike splits of the day (Alexander rode 4:24:42, and Brown rode 4:24:48). Once on run, a group of five men, including Alexander and Brown, pushed the pace early but by the 10 km mark Alexander and Brown broke off for a side-by-side battle. This continued until there was 10 km left to go. At that point, Alexander stepped on the gas and steadily surged away from Brown to run the rest of the marathon solo (2:38:46) and win the Ironman Asia-Pacific Championship in 7:57:44.

Men

1. ALEXANDER, Craig 07:57:44

2. BROWN, Cameron 08:00:12

3. VAN LIERDE, Frederik 08:01:26

4. LLANOS, Eneko 08:02:23

5. DELLOW, David 08:04:19

6. MATTHEWS, Paul 08:05:58

7. BELL, Luke 08:10:38

8. GAMBLES, Joe 08:12:46

9. ALBERT, Marko 08:18:04

10. AERNOUTS, Bart 08:18:17

Steffen trailed after the swim (53:29), but the former professional cyclist roared to the front with a dominating bike ride (4:35:29), and finished with a 3:01:22 marathon to claim the win with a time of 8:34:51. This was just shy of Chrissie Wellington’s Ironman world record time of 8:33:56 set at Ironman South Africa last year.

Women

1. STEFFEN, Caroline 08:34:51

2. JOYCE, Rachel 08:46:09

3. CARFRAE, Mirinda 09:04:00

4. LAWN, Joanna 09:06:53

5. CRAWFORD, Gina 09:11:16

6. KEAT, Rebekah 09:13:43

7. JACOBS, Jessica 09:13:57

8. LESTER, Carrie 09:18:25

9. VESTERBY, Michelle 09:19:05

10. GRANGER, Belinda 09:26:21