IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie results: Jelle Geens wins as Van Coevorden fights back to retain title

Jelle Geens returned to winning ways at IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie, while Natalie Van Coevorden overturned a sizeable bike deficit to defend her title in a closely contested women’s race.

Belgium’s 2024 and 2025 IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion won in 3:44:34 on his first appearance at the event, finishing 2:32 ahead of Kieran Storch, with Mitch Kibby third.

Van Coevorden’s route to victory was considerably less straightforward. The Australian admitted she considered stopping during a difficult bike leg before chasing down Emily Watts on the run to claim her fourth IRONMAN 70.3 win of 2026.

Women’s race – Van Coevorden wins the battle

Van Coevorden led out of the 1.9km swim, with Demi Birch and Sian Munks following, but former professional cyclist Watts soon transformed the race.

Despite starting the bike around two and a half minutes behind, Watts erased that deficit within the opening 20km and continued to build her advantage.

By T2, Van Coevorden faced a gap of almost four minutes – and had already endured a testing morning.

“Oh my god, I was fighting some absolute demons out there today,” she said. “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.”

Once on the run, however, the defending champion began steadily reducing Watts’ lead.

“When I heard it was four minutes off the bike, I didn’t know if I could run her down, but the first 10k showed that I could and I just kept fighting,” she said.

“Honestly, I think it just shows that you have to keep believing in yourself sometimes. It’s amazing to get another win here and defend my title from last year.”

The decisive catch came with around five kilometres remaining, but Van Coevorden still had work to do to secure the victory.

“I kept backing myself that I could catch her and when I caught her, I just kept running the same pace that I was running and got a bit of a gap towards the end.”

She finished in 4:16:40, with Watts just 32 seconds behind in 4:17:12. Birch completed the podium in 4:25:01.

Natalie Van Coevorden finish line claiming the win at IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie - Photo Korupt Vision — Natalie Van Coevorden wins IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie 2026 [Photo credit: Korupt Vision]

For Van Coevorden, the win followed earlier successes this season in Western Sydney, Spain and the Philippines.

Men’s race – Geens takes control

Josh Ferris set the early pace in the swim, opening a gap that Geens had hoped to avoid.

“I wanted to really try and stick with Josh in the swim and he got a gap immediately from the start,” Geens explained. “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’ challenge ended with a crash early on the bike, leaving Geens to take control at the front.

“I didn’t really see what happened with Josh,” he 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.”

Geens reached T2 with a lead of around a minute over Roland Crantock, then extended his advantage through the run.

“I knew I had maybe a bit over a minute off the bike and if I had my normal run legs I should be able to hold that,” he said.

Victory in 3:44:34 marked a successful first outing since his bronze medal at September’s IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice.

Jelle Geens belgian flag taking the win at IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie - Photo Korupt Vision — Jelle Geens celebrates his win [Photo credit: Korupt Vision]

Storch took second in 3:47:06, with Kibby securing third in 3:49:33, just 11 seconds ahead of Crantock. Jarrod Osborne rounded out the top five.

Now based on Australia’s Gold Coast, Geens also enjoyed the reception he received throughout the race.

“Even passing all the Age Groupers on the bike, there are lots of cheers and lots of ‘go Jelle’, which was really cool actually,” he said.

“And then also on the run lots of spectators shouting my name, which is cool because it’s not a very common name here.”