Australian Mirinda Carfrae has confirmed her status as one of triathlon's all-time greats with a third Hawaiian Ironman world title.
The pint-sized 33-year-old with the giant heart unleashed her trademark withering run to overcome a whopping deficit of nearly 15 minutes.
Carfrae's successful title defence was the performance of the race.
She is the fourth woman to win Hawaii three times or more and Carfrae also joins Craig Alexander as the only three-time Australian champions of the race.
After spending several years in the shadow of her great rival and friend Chrissie Wellington, Carfrae is now the undisputed Queen of Kona.
Carfrae has never finished worse than third in six Hawaiian starts.
"It's massive - Crowie Alexander is one of the guys who helped me get to this place," she said.
"So to equal his three times here is amazing.
"To join the likes of Paula Newby-Fraser, Chrissie Wellington, Natascha Badmann - legends of our sport - to put my name up there, unbelievable.
"I couldn't have written this script better."
Carfrae also continues Australia's stunning run of success at Hawaii, with a winner every year since 2006.
She broke her own run course record, set last year, and has four of the five fastest women's run splits at the race.
In his Kona debut, NSW triathlete Tim Van Berkel confirmed he has what it takes to win the world title when he finished a surprise seventh behind German winner Sebastian Kienle.
But for a long time on Saturday, an Australian win looked a long shot.
The strong cyclists made the most of unusually-windy conditions to break the race apart.
After the 3.8km ocean swim and 180km cycle, Carfrae was eighth and 14:32 down on Swiss first-timer Daniela Ryf.
Carfrae always has to come from behind in the 42.2km marathon to win at Kona, but last year she only had to make up about eight minutes.
And halfway through the run this year, she was still nine minutes behind.
Carfrae mowed down her rivals and caught Ryf with about 5km left.
She won in nine hours 55 seconds and her 2:40:26 run split was 12 seconds faster than last year's record.
"Mentally it was tougher than other years for sure, because it was the latter stages of the run that it took to catch those front girls," she said.
"I didn't think it was my day and I don't even know how to explain it - one foot in front of the other, keep truckin'.
"I'm used to chasing all day and I had to do it again today, but the girls out the front were all class.
"I'm pretty shocked to have been able to break the tape."
Ryf held on for second in 9:02:57 and British triathlete Rachel Joyce, who was runner-up last year, was third in 9:04:23.
Kienle broke clear on the bike and won his first Hawaiian title in 8:14:18.
American Ben Hoffman had a breakout race to finish second in 8:19:23 and German Jan Frodeno was third in his first attempt at Kona with 8:20:32.
Frodeno, the 2008 Beijing gold medallist, joins Australian Michellie Jones as the only triathletes to post podium finishes at the Olympics and Hawaii.
Jones won silver at the Sydney Olympics and won Hawaii in 2006.
Van Berkel was fourth until late in the run, when he suffered leg cramps and faded, but was still rapt with seventh.
"I was just in survival mode, but to hang tough for seventh, it's more than what I asked for," he said. AUSTRALIAN WINNERS AT HAWAII
1994: Greg Welch
2006: Michellie Jones
2007: Chris McCormack
2008, '09, '11: Craig Alexander
2010, '13, '14: Mirinda Carfrae
2012: Pete Jacobs WOMEN TO HAVE WON HAWAII THREE OR MORE TIMES
Paul Newby-Fraser (USA) 8
Natascha Badmann (Sui) 6
Chrissie Wellington (Gbr) 4
Carfrae 3 MIRINDA CARFRAE AT HAWAII
2009: 2nd
2010: won
2011: 2nd
2012: 3rd
2013: won
2014: won
Share
