The Bathurst Wallabies Triathlon Club member took out the honours as the first female to finish in the third round of the Central West Inter-club Triathlon Series.

Her podium in the Bathurst event came as a surprise as while Watts is no stranger to triathlons, so far this summer her focus has been on her blossoming cycling career.

She picked up a bronze medal in the under 19s criterium at the Cycling Australia Road Nationals in early January and come next weekend, will hit the boards as part of the New South Wales team which contests the track nationals.

“I just came back from road nats and I’m heading to track nats next week, so running and swimming haven’t really been on my agenda. I had been doing a little bit of swimming for recovery, but nothing serious, so this was pretty unexpected,” she said.

“I am very, very surprised.”

In the first two rounds of the series in Mudgee and Cowra, it was members of the Orange Piranhas who had dominated with two podium clean sweeps.

On Friday Orange once more had a strong presence for the 2.5 kilometre run, 200 metres swim, 16km cycle, 200m swim then 2.5km run format race.

Piranha Laura Wolfson was the quickest in the opening leg and was mere seconds behind Watts after the first swim, but in the end she had to settle for runner-up as the cycle leg – not surprisingly – saw Watts pull clear.

Third belonged to Orange’s Jessie Dean.

“I was doing conservative for the first run, I didn’t know the field so I decided to just go out and run what I think I could hold the rest of the race,” Watts said.

“Into the swim I was bit surprised with how I felt, I didn’t feel too bad, so I was pretty confident I could make it the whole way. I actually got clear of the lady who was coming first in the last 50 metres.

“I knew in the bike I just had to keep the pace on.

“It didn’t feel too bad with the two swims, you popped into the water before you came back out into the sun, so it wasn’t too bad.”