Portuguese, Aussie rule Alveo Ironman

DAVAO, Philippines — Portugal’s Filipe Azevedo and Sarah Crowley of Australia fueled their respective title bids in the bike leg then held off their rivals’ fightback in the grueling closing run to crown themselves the 2023 Alveo IRONMAN 70.3 Davao champions at the Azuela Cove here yesterday.

Azevedo, 30, figured in a three-way battle with Serbian Ognjen Stojanovic and Tuan Chun Chang of Taiwan in swim then took command by nearly four minutes over Chang with a blistering pace in bike (2:00:17) by Transition 2. He then lived through the punishing run (1:20:38) in hot conditions to prevail in 3:51:09 over the 1.9k swim-90k bike-21k run distance event powered by Petron.

Stojanovic turned in the best clocking in the closing leg (1:18:02) but fell short of his comeback bid, settling for runner-up in 3:52:28, while Chang timed 3:57:12 for third followed by American Robbie Deckard and Zsombor Deak of Romania, who clocked 4:09:01 and 4:14:27, respectively.

Crowley later came in with a 4:20:14 clocking to beat American Lauren Brandon (4:22:49) and Lottie Lucas of United Arab Emirates (4:25:09) in their side of the pro battle as the Brisbane native kept her hot streak going following a rare sweep of three Australian IRONMAN races last year, including the IM Western Australia in Busselton last December.

Brandon actually came out of the water nearly two minutes ahead French Julie Iemmolo, Lucas and Crowley. But the 40-year-old Crowley unleashed a strong finishing kick in the next leg to seize the lead then flashed superb staying power by dominating the early part of the run.

Crowley, who placed third in the World Triathlon Championship in 2019, built a near three-minute lead then survived Brandon’s last-ditch rally to share top honors with Azevedo in the event which marked the pros’ return in the country’s version of the IRONMAN series.