BATHURST triathlete Terry Roberts has added to his lengthy list of achievements in the field of Ironman triathlons by claiming an Australian championship in his men’s 50-54 years age group in the Half-Ironman race at Port Macquarie on Sunday.

Roberts, a competitor at the Hawaii Ironman multiple times in the past, now qualifies for the World Half-Ironman Championships to be held in Queensland in September.

He didn’t just win his race on Saturday, he smashed it.

His time was enough to defeat his nearest rival, Brett Cam, by 12 minutes and 54 seconds.

Roberts stopped the clock in his 1.9 kilometre swim, 90km ride and 21.1km run in 4:38.04.

“I went up there with the intention of going pretty hard to win, I didn’t know how I was tracking in terms of the race itself as far as the other competitors were going,” Roberts said.

“But I had the times in my mind that I needed to be posting at the checkpoints and I knew I was tracking okay. I just had to hope that those times put me far enough in front.

“By the time I got to the end I had a comfortable gap which was a nice way to finish.

“I felt very well balanced across the three legs, I was in pretty good shape I thought, after what had been a pretty frustrating period of training where I had a few injury problems.”

Roberts got through the swim comfortably in 34.13 minutes, before a 2:28.38 stint on the bike, and impressively each of his first four splits were posted in roughly the same average speed before he slowed marginally towards the last transition.

His run started at a good pace as well, and he managed to average around four minutes per kilometre for the first 10km before fatigue began to set in. 

His lead was enough that it didn’t matter by that stage, and he cruised home for a comfortable win in his division, and 64th overall.

“Now that I’ve qualified for the World Championships I’ll just be going up there to do the best I can and hopefully go as quick as I did this time,” he said.

“Mark Windsor and Nick North from Bathurst have already qualified to go up there, so that will make for a good trip.

“I’ve had a few wins over the half-distance before and a few placings as well, but this was a real goal for me, my main one of the season and although I got an injury late last year that made training pretty difficult, generally things have been good.”

Meanwhile, full Ironman debutante Andrew Crowley managed to get through his maiden race unscathed, clocking a time of 12:59.12. It gave him a 76th place finish in his division, as he made up 23 spots during the run leg.

Fellow Bathurst competitor Andrew Burke was only five minutes behind him, finishing 143rd in the 45-49 years male division.