28 April 2019
CITY OF NAGA—Australia’s Sam Betten and New Zealand’s Amelia Watkinson emerged the biggest winners in the Sun Life 5150 Triathlon Cebu on Sunday, April 28, here.
Betten was crowned champion in the male Pro division after finishing the 750-meter swim, 20-kilometer bike, five-kilometer run competition in one hour, 59 minutes and 32 seconds.
Watkinson came away with her own title after she ruled the female Pro division with a time of 2:06:44.
Betten and Watkinson each pocketed a whopping $10,000 prize money.
It was actually an all-Australian show in the male Pro division with Betten’s compatriots rounding up the top three finishers.
Alexander Polizzi trailed Betten with a time of 2:03:55, while Mitch Robins finished third with a time of 2:05:34.
Placing second in the female Pro division was Hungary’s Anna Eberhardt, who crossed the finish line in two hours, 14 minutes and 51 seconds.
Manami Iijima of Guam clocked 2:16:16 to finish third.
Naga Mayor Kristine Chiong was overwhelmed with the success of the event.
“Hosting this is very important to us. This is part of our recovery and healing from the deadly landslide which ravaged the city in September 2018,” she said.
While it the first time for Naga to host such event, Betten was all praises for the venue.
“It had that 70.3 quality which I’ve always tried, beautiful swim course, the bike course, I think having that multi flat in loops is actually great, the crowd was really good, we had great support out there,” Betten said.
“Sunrise just did a phenomenal job here. Thank you Cebu, thank you to the mayor, thank you to sunrise events, all the people supporting this, this is a phenomenal local event. If you haven’t been here for the first time, you’d think that this race has been run for 10 years, you got professionals out here,” he added.
For Watkinson, the event was well-organized and advised the organizers to sustain the momentum.
“You can never go too high, make some room for improvement, you gotta keep everybody striving,” Watkinson said.
The Sun Life Financial 5150 Triathlon Cebu was done simultaneously with the Go For Gold Sunrise Sprint.
A total of 281 foreign and local triathletes took part in the event that featured the pro, elite and age-group categories.
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