Joshua Amberger wins Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie 2013

Joshua Amberger won the 2013 Port Macquarie Ironman 70.3 last weekend in style with a bike leg that saw him completely dominate the competition and set himself up for an easier than planned run. With Noosa only two weeks away this was a blessing.

Sam Appleton finished in second place after posting a very fast 1:15 half marathon. Appleton has been threatening for about a year after posting some strong results. This is Appleton’s second coming after showing a lot of promise as an elite junior before being somewhat burnt out and loosing his passion for the sport. After taking some time out from the Appleton made a comeback with a new focus on long distance triathlons.

Joey Lampe had a great race to take third overall with a very solid 1:17 half marathon. Lampe always races well and the big guy has developed a quick run now which will see him on the podium more and more over the longer distances.

Lampe’s lead up saw him win the Yamba triathlon the week before. This new triathlon on NSW North Coast gave him a last good hitout before stepping up to race in a very strong field. As he matures age wise Lampe will be a force to reckon with.

For Amberger this win is the result of his evolution to racing non drafting and learning how to time trial and race the longer distance. The scary thing for Amberger’s competition is that he still has work to do on the bike to get it to where he wants. Once there he will then switch his focus to improving his run. “I have been learning to ride more efficiently and still feel I am missing some speed due to my lack of experience and years on the bike. I look at guys like Sebastian Kienle, Ben Collins, Andrew Starykowicz, Greg Bennett etc as my benchmark. I am not quite there yet. When I feel I am my focus will then go towards taking my run to the next level.”

A new bike this year from Felt has helped hugely according to Amberger. “The new Felt IA bike gave me an instant lift in my bike speed and how I felt on the bike. It has boosted my confidence even more.”

We saw Amberger make a name for himself at the recent Ironman 70.3 World Champs in Vegas when he lead the swim and raced at the front for about 60kms. This was a solid performance and he will have gained some very good confidence from it. Prior to the 70.3 World Champs Amberger won the Galveston 5150 in addition to the 3rd at the Boulder 70.3 and a 3rd at theBoulder Peak 5150.

Amberger will now take on Noosa and then Shepparton 70.3 before calling it a year. He will take three weeks off training after Shepparton before starting his preparation for 2014.

Second place Sam Appleton finally made it on to the podium after threatening to many times. His race fast run saw him move through the field and take the lead with about 5kms to go. He had put everything in to getting to second place at this stage and had to fight hard to keep his legs moving in the dying stages of the race.

During the bike Appleton struggled to find his legs and had a bit of work to do on the run to get in the action. Even when he was caught at about the 60km mark by Tim Berkel, Paul Ambrose and David Mainwaring he still struggled to get the legs moving. Lucky for Appleton they were saving themselves for the run.

Mainwaring was someone we were looking at as a dark horse if he was close to the leaders off the bike. He swum very well, rode strongly but had cramping issues in his quads within the first two kms on the run. Mainwaring is a very fast runner and it is only a matter of time before he gets the recipe right and gets a podium at a major race.

For Paul Ambrose the 2013 Port Macquarie 70.3 didn’t bring the same result as he had the previous year at Ironman Australia. In 2012 Ambrose dominated the race with a huge 15min lead off the bike to put himself in the record books. This year things weren’t firing quite the same.

Tim Berkel almost took third place but Lampe was quick witted enough to put in a last ditch sprint to hold off the faster runner.

Casey Munro once again showed that he has reclaimed the triathlon speed that he possessed as a junior. He swum and rode very well but his 1:20:45 run was not good enough to to hold off thee faster runners last weekend.

Kiwi Tom Davison had a solid race until the last 6kms or so when he ‘Totally blew and was in damage control.’ Davison finised 12th at Hy-Vee this year and was 6th at the Boulder Peak. We look forward to following him as he does more 70.3 races.

Alex Reithmeier swum and ran well to take 7th overall. His bike time took him out of the running but he showed that there is some promise of better things to come this season.