Australia's Chris McCormack, or Macca as he’s affectionately known, re-wrote the triathlon history books at Ironman Australia in winning the race an amazing fifth consecutive time.  Macca is now an incredible 5 for 5 at Ironman Australia!

This was the first time the race took place at the new site of Port Macquarie.  With a quick time of 8:20:42 McCormack has now set the bench mark for years to come.

Over 1,500 athletes entered the Hastings River to begin their road to Ironman and it immediately became clear we were about to witness an awesome race and an incredible day of racing.

The two lap swim was hotly disputed, with Australia's Shane Gibbs taking the 3.8km leg in 46:09. Andrew Johns was hot on his heels, while the favorite Chris McCormack and fellow Aussie Chris Legh were not many seconds behind.

Into the bike leg McCormack and Legh took the race to the front of the field, joined by New Caledonia's Patrick Vernay, a two time winner of Ironman Korea.

The trio drilled through the first two laps and, while the rest of the field struggled, swapped the lead and gradually pulled away. Eventually the pace became an issue for Chris Legh, who fell off the pace when McCormack threw in a major surge. Though Vernay continued to hang tough to the end of the bike, it was race favorite McCormack who came off the bike in first place before heading out for his marathon.

Jason Shortis replaced Legh as the chaser through the run as he surged into third while many others faded out of the top ten.

Chris McDonald, Shane Gibbs, and others dropped down the leader board as the runners in the field applied pressure, but nothing appeared to faze McCormack, who simply answered each challenge with attack and strode away from his pursuers with an awesome 2:47 marathon split.

Amongst the top 20, just four athletes ran under three hours on the hilly run course. Vernay stayed strong in second while Shortis kept the pressure on to hold third. A solid performance through the race paid dividends for Victoria's Craig McKenzie, the Victorian coming home in fourth from seasoned campaigner but Ironman rookie, England's Andrew Johns who captured fifth place.

"The more Ironman races I do the more patient I am.  I know that I can now win from different positions and I don't have to have ten minutes lead off the bike," said McCormack following his historic victory. "No one has given credit to my run and just like at Hawaii, I've had the days fastest run again.  I tried to work the hills on the course today and it paid off!"

The top ten men were separated by more than a forty minute gap as McCormack put together another masterpiece.  McCormack has now won an amazing 9 Ironman's since his Ironman début back in 2002 -- Where he won.  He’s also the only man on the planet to have gone under the 8 hour mark twice (2004 and 2005) since 1999.