Ironman 2016: swim, bike | PHOTOS

Ironman 2016: bike, run | PHOTOS

Ironman 2016: on the sidelines | PHOTOS

Ironman 2016: YOUR PHOTOS

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CALIFORNIAN Beth Gerdes played out an almost perfect race on the way to claiming her first Ironman Australia Port Macquarie title on Sunday.

Gerdes finished in a time of 9:10:27 after she sat in the top five athletes for the whole race although she said her swim leg surprised her the most.

“It was surprising to me because I am an average swimmer, but I love the swim course here - it’s beautiful, calm water and going over the weir was really cool,” she said.

Last year’s champion Michelle Bremer led the run leg for 37 of the 42 kilometres, but couldn’t hang on, finishing second in 9:13:33.

Dimity-Lee Duke finished in third position with a time of 9:42:15.

Gerdes, who competed in her first Port Macquarie event, paid tribute to the fans who had lined the streets since the early hours of the morning.

“It was amazing to be here in Port Macquarie with all the amazing fans here, it was crazy and I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.

“On the run I had a huge deficit coming off the bike, but the energy from the crowd was like none other and it kept moving me forward and I was able to eventually win it. I’ve done all the other Ironman’s in Australia so my goal was to do Port Mac so now I have done them all.”

Gerdes said she would like to return to the Hastings in 12 months time.

“I don’t like the expression defend the title, but I’d love to come back and do it again,” she said.

Defending champion and runner-up Bremer said Gerdes was just simply too good.

“I still did a PB for the run of about three hours 10 minutes which was about four minutes quicker than I’ve done before but Beth had a storming run and made up all that ground,” she said.

“I’m disappointed I held the lead until 37 kays, but had nothing to give when Beth came by. Overall I had a good race, so I can’t be too upset about it.”