Portugal's Azevedo, Australia's Crowley winners in Ironman 70.3

Portugal's Filipe Azevedo and Sarah Crowley of Australia won the crown in the men's and women's professional categories.

After swimming alongside Taiwan's Tuan Chun Chang and Serbia's Ognjen Stojanovic in a three-way contest, Azevedo, 30, took the lead by over four minutes over Chang on the bike (2:00:17). He finished the run in 1:20:38 to win the 1.9k swim-90k bike-21k run powered by Petron event in 3:51:09.

Chang finished in third place with a time of 3:57:12, followed by US athlete Robbie Deckard in fourth place with a time of 4:09:01, and Romanian athlete Zsombor Deak in fifth place with a time of 4:14:27. Stojanovic finished the best time on the final leg (1:18:02), but he was unable to complete his comeback attempt.

After a rare sweep of three Australian Ironman races last year, including the IM Western Australia in Busselton in December, Brisbane native Crowley finished in 4:20:14, beating Lauren Brandon of the US (4:22:49) and Lottie Lucas of the United Arab Emirates (4:25:09).

Julie Iemmolo of France, Lucas, and Crowley were all out of the water almost two minutes after Brandon. The 40-year-old Crowley, though, used a powerful finishing kick in the next leg to take the lead and then showed incredible stamina by controlling the opening stages of the run.

In the race that marked the pros' return to the country's Ironman series staging, Crowley, who finished third in the World Triathlon Championship in 2019, created a lead of almost three minutes before holding off Brandon's final push to share first place with Azevedo.

Azevedo, based in Dubai and previously won his nation's middle-distance triathlon national championships, shared the $30,000 prize money with Crowley. He also won the 2019 IM 70.3 Shanghai.

Amy Vantassel of the US finished seventh in 5:07:31, while multi-titled Dimity-Lee Duke finished sixth in 4:59:21 despite having a challenging swim.

The world's most prestigious endurance event, which drew over a thousand competitors from 46 nations, also guaranteed 55 spots at the World Championships this year, including 30 age-group berths and 25 additional spots for women. The global meet will occur in Lahti, Finland, on August 26 and 27. (Romeo Braceros Jr.)