Jelle Geens wins his first race of 2026 at Port Macquarie as Van Coevorden runs down Watts
The Belgian won Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie by two and a half minutes on his debut there. A day earlier in Cascais, Lizzie Rayner won the 70.3 for the third year running.
Jelle Geens won Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie in Australia on 18 October, his first victory of 2026, finishing in 3 hours 44 minutes 34 seconds on his first appearance at the race.
Australia’s Kieran Storch was second in 3:47:06 and Mitch Kibby third in 3:49:33, 11 seconds ahead of Roland Crantock. In the women’s race, Australia’s Natalie Van Coevorden defended her title after starting the run almost four minutes behind Emily Watts.
The Belgian won the 70.3 world title in 2024 and 2025 and took bronze at the world championship in Nice on 13 September. Before Port Macquarie he had not won a race this season. According to the Belgian site 3athlon.be, he chose not to qualify for the Ironman World Championship in Kona because he was not fully fit earlier in the year.
A crash removes the early leader
Josh Ferris led out of the 1.9 km swim in 22:28, with Geens 39 seconds behind, Triathlon Today reported. Geens said he had wanted to stay with Ferris.
“I wanted to really try and stick with Josh in the swim and he got a gap immediately from the start,” he told TRI247. “I didn’t have the best start so had to overtake some people and there was a bit of a gap and I couldn’t really close and had to settle.”
Ferris crashed early on the bike, which ended his race. “I didn’t really see what happened with Josh,” Geens said. “I saw at the u-turn that he wasn’t there anymore and from then on I just tried to set my own pace and do a good second lap on the bike.”
He reached the second transition with a lead of about a minute over Crantock and stretched it on the half marathon. 3athlon.be reported that he passed halfway on the run in 37:07, two minutes clear of Storch.
Van Coevorden comes back from four minutes down
Van Coevorden, an Olympian, led out of the water. Watts, a former professional cyclist, started the bike around two and a half minutes behind but closed the gap within the first 20 km and kept going. By the second transition she led by almost four minutes.
“Oh my god, I was fighting some absolute demons out there today,” Van Coevorden told TRI247. “Unfortunately, we had some pretty tough weather on the bike and being a quite small build, I just really suffered and there were many times where I thought I was going to stop, to be honest.”
She took back time steadily on the run and passed Watts with around five kilometres left. She won in 4:16:40, 32 seconds ahead of Watts. Demi Birch was third in 4:25:01. TRI247 reported that it was Van Coevorden’s fourth Ironman 70.3 win of 2026.
Rayner makes it three in Cascais
In Portugal on 17 October, Britain’s Lizzie Rayner won Ironman 70.3 Cascais for the third year in a row, after victories in 2024 and 2025. She led out of the water, rode alone at the front and won in 4:13:02. Her compatriot Nikki Bartlett was second in 4:20:11 and Switzerland’s Leana Bissig third in 4:24:16.
Reports of the race listed a professional field only in the women’s 70.3. Mariana Marques, racing her first professional event at the distance, was the leading Portuguese woman in 12th, Diário de Notícias reported.
The full-distance Ironman Portugal-Cascais was held on the same day. France’s Remi Conte won in 8:17:26, ahead of his compatriots Nathan Menant (8:36:32) and Clovis Beurrier (8:40:17). Germany’s Jessica Ittner won the women’s race in 9:45:29, more than 11 minutes clear of Marloes Meinders of the Netherlands, with Sarah Etter of Switzerland third. Results for the full distance were published as overall rankings and were still marked provisional.
About 5,500 triathletes entered the two Cascais races, 3,000 in the 70.3 and 2,500 in the full distance. Both events sold out.
