“Honestly, that was the hardest I’ve worked in a race ever, but just really happy it was enough to get the win.”
Berry was fourth out of the water, 2.5 minutes behind the leading trio of Lotte Wilms, Lauren Brandon and Rebecca Clarke.
The top three held their positions at the front of the race for the first 130km of the bike leg before Berry reeled in Clarke.
From there Berry continued to take time out of Wilms and Brandon as they hit the Cairns Esplanade.
Wilms was first off the bike, just a second ahead of Brandon, with Berry a minute behind in third.
Wilms and Brandon swapped positions several times through the early stages of the marathon, before Berry made her move and never looked back on her way to victory.
“It was a pretty good swim for me, obviously, I wanted to be up there with the front three, but I wasn’t quite good enough today.
“On to the bike, it was a completely solo ride for me out there, which was at times pretty mentally tough, I could see at every U-turn that the front three were together and working together and then I was a couple of minutes back and it seemed like the whole time I was just on my own.
“So, it was a very lonely 180km ride, but I just tried to stick to my race, stick to my numbers, and just stay positive and never give up.
“I came into T2 with not too much down on the front girls and then just really tried to run my own race, settle in, and tried not to slow down too much and hoped that it was enough to hang on for the win. I think that was my fastest marathon in an Ironman so pretty stoked.
“I can’t really put the finish line into words I don’t think. You only dream of something like that so it means a lot.
As well as claiming the Asia-Pacific championship title, Berry’s win in Cairns will shoot her up the Ironman Pro Series leaderboard, with the victory worth 5000 points.
“I’m stoked [to come away with 5000 Ironman Pro Series points]. That’s my second race, two Ironmans done now and pretty decent points out of those two, so we keep pushing for the rest of the year and see how we end up.
“A little break now because I did Texas before this one. So that’s two Ironmans quite close together and then I’ll look to do Ironman 70.3 Zell am See[-Kaprun, in Austria], which is part of the Pro Series as well. Then obviously, the Nice Ironman World Champs, so that’s the next two.”
“I don’t know how to put it into words, it means a lot. It’s a big step in the right direction for me and it’s exciting. We work so hard for this, and you really have to celebrate these times because sport has its ups and downs.”
In the men’s race Matt Burton, from Perth in Western Australia, crossed the finish line in 7h 45m 24s, a new course-best time, three and a half minutes ahead of New Zealand’s Braden Currie, with fellow Kiwi Mike Phillips only 20 seconds behind in third.
Ironman Asia-Pacific Championship Cairns – women’s results
- Hannah Berry – 8h 44m 31s
- Lotte Wilms – 8h 46m 53s
- Kylie Simpson – 8h 50m 12s
- Lauren Brandon – 8h 52m 33s
- Rebecca Clarke – 9h 3m 43s
- Fiona Moriarty – 9h 5m 53s
- Ai Ueda – 9h 6m 50s
- Giorgia Priarone – 9h 9m 5s
- Kate Gillespie-Jones – 9h 16m 2s
- Meredith Hill – 9h 27m 3s
Ironman Asia-Pacific Championship Cairns – men’s results
- Matt Burton – 7h 45m 24s
- Braden Currie – 7h 48m 59s
- Mike Phillips – 7h 49m 21s
- Arnoud Guilloux – 7h 50m 59s
- Tristan Olij – 7h 54m 32s
- Joe Skipper – 7h 56m 51s
- Mitch Kibby – 7h 57m 59s
- Greg Barnaby – 7h 58m 30s
- Nick Thompson – 8h 7m 15s
- Josh Amberger – 8h 8m 24s
– SunLive
