American Olympic champion Gwen Jorgensen and South African Richard Murray faced off top rivals before emerging champions of the three-day Island House Invitational Triathlon with a US$60,000 paycheck.

The Island House Triathlon invites forty of the world’s best triathletes including Olympic and World Champions, from multiple racing backgrounds to test themselves against each other and the clock in a new and exciting triathlon format in the beauty of the Bahamas. The triathletes compete over three days in individual time trials, enduro and sprint non-drafting formats to determine the best overall athlete.

On the third and final day of competition, Jorgensen started with a 45 seconds lead on Holly Lawrence of Great Britain and 55 seconds on Flora Duffy who recently won the Xterra World Championships. Duffy and Lawrence worked together on the opening swim leg to reduce Jorgensen’s lead to 30 seconds.

Duffy caught Jorgensen halfway through the 20 km bike course and created a significant lead by T2. However, Jorgensen took the lead again, 3km into the 5km run and finished with a second-best 58:08 time but her day 2 lead provided enough cushion for the victory.

Jorgensen finished the three-day affair with a total time of 3:55:01, with a 29 seconds margin of victory over Duffy and 2:43 over 3rd-place finisher Lawrence.

In the Men’s, Richard Murray began the day with 65 seconds over Cameron Dye of the U.S. and 73seconds on Terenzo Bozzone of New Zealand. Murray maintained his lead on the swim but was caught by Dye on the bike.

Halfway through the run, Murray came back on Dye to snatch the lead before crossing the line.
Dye tried his best of the day, but was not enough to claim the overall win from Murray who finished in 3:35:35 with a 29 seconds margin of victory over Dye and 2:38 over 3rd-place finisher Aaron Royle of Australia.

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