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Australians Sam Appleton and Annabel Luxford captured the Elite Titles in Challenge Melbourne Half
Men’s Elite
Sam Appleton was in the lead pack, going out of the water just 3 seconds behind swim leader Dan Wilson. Behind the 2-man lead pack was Casey Munro, who was 6 seconds behind, Tim Reed (42 seconds off), and almost 2 minutes on Mitchell Kibby,Lachlan Kerin, and Gerald Wild.
A 3rd-best bike split of 2:04:41 made Appleton the T2 leader, and lurking behind were chasers Kerin, Wilson, Burton and Reed, all within a deficit from 1:45 to 2:43. Matt Burton had the day’s best bike split at 2:03:00.
Appleton was not seriously threatened on the run, posting the day’s best run split (1:11:13) to win his second half-distance of 2017. Appleton finished in 3:44:51 with a 1:32 margin of victory over Wilson and 9:20 over 3rd place Reed (1:17:50 run).
Women’s Elite
Annabel Luxford combined her women’s best swim and bike splits, plus her 2nd-best run split to win in a domanting fashion, finishing in 4:09:58, a 6:04 margin of victory over Laura Siddall of Great Britain and 29:13 over 3rd-place Zoe Adams (AUS).
Luxford’s 28:57 swim split and a dominating bike split of 2:14:42, gave her 7:41 lead on Siddall (2:19:13 bike split), 14 minutes on Hosken, and 23 minutes on Adams upon entering T2. Despite the huge lead off the bike, Luxford still posted the 2nd best run split of 1:21:51, just giving away 54 seconds to tunner-up Sidall, who posted the women’s best run split of 1:20:57.
This is the 2nd time Appleton and Luxford both won in Australia for 2017. They were also champions in Ironman 70.3 Geelong last February.
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