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New Zealander athletes win Ironman 70.3 Bintan
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Two New Zealander athletes, Mike Phillips and Amelia Watkinson, were crowned as winners at the Ironman 70.3 sports competition held in Bintan, Riau Islands, on Sunday. (Shutterstock/File)
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wo New Zealander athletes, Mike Phillips and Amelia Watkinson, were crowned as winners at the Ironman 70.3 sports competition held in Bintan, Riau Islands, on Sunday.
Phillips was the fastest athlete in the men’s category with a time of 3 hours and 54 minutes, while Watkinson won the women’s category with 4 hours and 20 minutes.
“Congratulations to the winners; they will receive a total prize of US$15,000 and the chance to compete at the Ironman World Championship 2018 in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. Thank you to Indonesia who has been a great host,” said Nathalie Marquet, the CEO of MetaSport, the event’s promoter.
Ironman 70.3 is a long-distance triathlon race organized by the World Triathlon Corporation.
The race began early in the morning with a 1.9-kilometer swim at the Plaza Lagoi, Bintan Resort. The athletes then take a 90-km (one lap) cycle route across the island. The race ended with a three-lap of 21-km running track.
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In 2016, the cycling, swimming and running routes in Bintan was crowned the best long course in Asia by triathlon website AsiaTri.
Apart from adults, 300 children aged between 6 and 12 years old also took part in the event, tackling the 1.5-km running track at the Iron Kids event that was held on the day before the main event.
This year’s race was joined by 1,200 participants, of which 80 percent were foreign citizens from 52 countries. It also reportedly attracted more than 3,000 foreign tourists.
The event had a positive impact on hotel occupation in Bintan that were all fully booked for the occasion.
“We have 1,800 hotel rooms in Bintan and all are occupied. Imagine if the average spending of one person is $1,000 and one room has an average of two people in it, which means the total spending can reach $3.6 million,” said Bintan Tourism Agency head Luki Zaki Prawira. (kes)
