Alicia Marriott made it three wins in a row in the final round of the Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Ironwoman at Coogee Beach in Sydney on Saturday, but it wasn't quite enough to claim the series championship.
Having achieved her first ever series race win at Coolum a fortnight ago in Round Three, then followed up with another win in Round Four, Alicia went to the final round in second place overall and needing to beat Queenslander Elizabeth Pluimers by at least four places to be crowned the series champion.
But although she achieved the rare feat of three consecutive race wins, Pluimers second place was good enough for her to win the series despite not winning any of the individual rounds.
The format was a set of three elimination ironwoman races, with the initial field of eighteen reduced to twelve, then to six for the final race.
After qualifying comfortably through the first two races Alicia got the jump on the rest of the field in the opening ski leg of the final, handling the Coogee shorebreak as though it was the sort of conditions she trains in all the time.
Establishing a handy lead, she maintained it through the swim leg before being held up in the break getting on to the board. A fantastic paddle by Pluimers saw the gap closed and the two ran up the beach together to the finish line, where Alicia crossed first by the narrowest of margins.
Pluimers' consistent season, where she never finished outside the top five, was rewarded with the Series championship. Alicia's three race wins were not quite enough to counteract the disastrous seventeenth placing in Round One but she still made it to second place overall, improving on her fourth placings in both the 2006 and 2007 series.
Video
| Race 1 part 1 | Race 1 part 2 | Race 2 part 1 |
| Race 2 part 2 | Race 3 part 1 | Race 3 part 2 |
