World’s best triathletes to descend on Busselton for Ironman Western Australia event

The 20th edition of Ironman events in Busselton on Sunday will see nearly 80 of the world’s best triathletes compete in the Ironman 70.3 Western Australia Asia-Pacific Championship.

The event, the 18th and penultimate one in the Ironman Pro Series, will be critically important in the series’ point standings and has a $US75,000 ($115,612) prize pool up for grabs.

Nine of the top 20 ranked women’s professionals are slated to be in action, including Denmark’s Maja Stage Nielsen, who will be looking to cement her third-place spot in the standings.

Nielsen will face firm competition from fellow top-10 ranked athletes the Netherlands’ Lotte Wilms (sixth) and Els Visser (10th), Germany’s Daniela Bleymehl (seventh), and New Zealand’s Hannah Berry (eighth).

The men’s event features four athletes currently ranked in the top 10 — Italy’s Gregory Barnaby, Denmark’s Kristian Hogenhaug, Sweden’s Robert Kallin, and Germany’s Paul Schuster.

Busselton is popular because of its reputation as one of the fastest and flattest courses on the circuit.

The athletes will take on a 1.9km swim leg and a 90km bike leg before finishing with a 21.1km run.

As well as the professionals, the day will feature three West Australians who will be looking to make history by competing in the Ironman Western Australia race for the 20th time.

David Boyes, Mark Kay and John Dominican will again take on the 3.8km swim, 180km ride and 42.2km run.

They said they were looking forward to the event.

“What keeps bringing me back to the event year after year is that this will be my wife’s 17th Ironman Western Australia and I don’t want her to catch up to me,” Boyes said.

“Apart from the usual aches, pains and constant fatigue of Ironman training, I actually feel pretty good,” Kay said.

“I haven’t trained enough due to a few personal issues but it’s all good,” Dominican said.