Aussie triathlon star resists sprint finish with Olympic champ Sifan Hassan as he aces Sydney Marathon

Top triathlete Steve McKenna was in the top 25 of over 32,000 finishers at the Sydney Marathon – and anyone who watched the live coverage will have seen him cross the line just behind women’s winner and Olympic champion Sifan Hassan!

The Aussie swim, bike and run star, who has won both IRONMAN Australia and IRONMAN New Zealand in the last couple of years, has taken a break from triathlon as the IRONMAN World Championship bike course in Nice this year doesn’t suit him.

So instead he’s thrown himself into his marathon running, with Sydney the big target as it became the seventh Abbott World Marathon Majors, alongside London, New York, Tokyo, Berlin, Boston and Chicago.

Did McKenna bag another PB?

Having already been a 2:20 pacer at the Ballarat Marathon earlier this year, the 33-year-old finished on the podium at the Sunshine Coast Marathon just a few weeks ago with a 2.18.34.

So the big question was could he beat that in Sydney?

It was a close run thing and, as he explained, the presence of women’s winner Hassan – who clocked 2:18:22 to take the title by just over 30 seconds – added a further complication.

But McKenna aced his aims – with a new PB of 2:18:26. He paced it nicely too with a negative split, 1:10:01 for the first half and then a 1:08:25.

That made him the 20th male and 21st overall from 32,844 finishers as Hailemaryam Kiros of Ethiopia took the men’s title in 2:06:06.

‘I did the right thing’

And it ticked off another aim too for McKenna. Posting on Instagram alongisde a photo of him with the men’s marathon GOAT Eliud Kipchoge, who came ninth, he said : “Goal was top 5 at the Australian Marathon Champs – 5th Place.

“Second goal was first woman but unfortunately I was put in a position where I would have to sprint the finish with the Olympic champ and break her winners tape 😂.

“I did the right thing and moved to the side to clap in the last 100m.

“Small PB on that @sydney_marathon course – stoked.”

To put McKenna’s time into context, it’s not as quick as Olympic champion Alex Yee’s sensational 2:11:08 at London in April – but it is faster than Matt Hanson’s 2:22:57 when he tried to get under the Olympic qualifying time at the US trials last year, in a project he titled ‘2:18 or bust’.

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Macca ‘jogs’ round on amazing day

There was at least one other triathlon connection in the race too as two-time IRONMAN World Champion Chris McCormack, the co-founder of Supertri, clocked just over four hours.

He said on Instagram: “An amazing 🤩 day in Sydney running the first ever marathon major in the southern hemisphere. Heavily under prepared for it but jogged and enjoyed the incredible course.

“Sydney absolutely turned it on. Haven’t seen crowds like that on our streets since the Olympics. Amazing day!”