Ashleigh Gentle made a splash at her maiden Ironman 70.3, taking the wire-to-wire win at Ironman 70.3 Xiamen in four hours, 16 minutes, and 4 seconds inclusive of a new run course record.
The Australian has also scored this win off the back of an historic seventh win (and sixth consecutive one) at the Noosa Triathlon last weekend.
She triumphed over the Olympic distance with a heroic effort to stay relevant on the bike and a storming run one minute faster than the rest of the field.
Gentle showed no signs of fatigue from the previous weekend’s exertions as well as the long-haul flight from Australia to China a mere three days ago. She led out of the 1.9-kilometer swim and all throughout the 90-kilometre bike course, with only Great Britain’s Frankie Sanjana closing a three-minute gap and threatening to tag her by time they hit the bike-to-run transition.
Gentle very quickly showed her quality on the run again, taking off early in the concluding half-marathon.