A CONFIDENT Pete Jacobs announced his return to the Far North yesterday by cruising to victory in the Coral Coast 5150 triathlon, almost 10 minutes ahead of his nearest rival.

Second in last year’s Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, Jacobs underlined his class at Port Douglas by leading from the outset and extending that margin at every change.

In the end he was able to enjoy the 10km run along the Four Mile Beach sand and claim a sweet victory, after injury robbed him of the chance to run at last year’s Cairns Airport Adventure Festival.

A dodgy foot restricted his participation to just the Quicksilver Reef Swim in 2011 – although he still managed to win that – but he was striding out freely in a sign he will be hard to beat in Sunday’s Ironman Cairns 70.3.

Jacobs agreed with waiting
media, who pointed out that he was barely puffing post-race.

"I’m training for the longer distance, so to get around in two hours is pretty short. And I’m really fit at the moment, so I recover quickly," he said.

The New South Welshman was a big fan of the Olympic distance (1.5km swim, 40km cycle, 10km run) course, finishing in 1.47:49.

"I really enjoyed the bike leg – it’s dead flat, fast and easy to just push it really hard out there," he said.

"I didn’t realise the run would be along the beach, but it was actually a lot of fun, jumping over the little water outlets."

Only after today will he taper off in preparation for the weekend’s race.

"My legs were quite sore on the ride today because of all the training I’ve been doing," he said.

"I’ll probably do one more big training session (today) and then take the rest of the week a bit easy with some short sessions and try to really freshen up for the longer distance."

Jacobs beat home Shepparton’s Anthony Rule (1.55:27) and Brisbane’s Steven Brasch (2.01:48).

The women’s race was not as clear cut after Michelle Wu missed the first wave of starters and was forced to race against the clock with another category.

Without Wu pushing her, Michelle Mitchell cantered to line honours in 2.08:52, while Wu finished with the fastest recorded women’s time (2.02:50). "It was an interesting race, obviously I started in a wave behind the open competitors, they started a bit earlier than what I thought so I just put my head down and tried to catch up," Wu said. "I was mainly using this event as a hit-out to the 70.3 next weekend, coming from Canberra I wanted to acclimatise and get myself ready for next weekend." Mitchell is hoping to replicate her second place at last year’s Cairns Ironman distance event.

"I’d really like to get a top five finish next weekend and I’ve also got my eye on the Green Island swim – it looks pretty spectacular so I’d like to have a splash over there," Mitchell said.

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