Bevilacqua back in winner’s circle
When Matt Bevilacqua was a 13-year-old nipper he was so small and slow he nearly drowned while competing at an interstate surf life saving competition at Maroubra Beach.
Now 18 years on, the kid who told his dad that same day he would get “heaps better’’ won his second round of the NutriGrain ironman series in 24 hours on the same beach – the stage for a mass rescue soon after when around 20 swimmers got caught in a rip.
“How crazy is that, all these years later, to win two race back to back,’’ said Bevilacqua, 31, the surf star who grew up in Tasmania and became the first athlete from the apple isle to compete on the professional iron series when still in his teens.
“My dad was saying we came here for an interstates and it almost broke me. I was so far behind and dad was scared I wasn’t coming back in. I nearly drowned. I remember it so well, being on a nipper board and barely scrapping home.
“But I also remember telling dad I was OK and I’d get them in a few years.’’
The back-to-back wins in rounds three and four in Sydney on the weekend have put Bevilacqua within a point of series leader Ali Day who missed the podium for the first time this series for his seventh place in Sunday’s survival format racing after being washed from his ski in the final race.
Bevilacqua is the defending series champion but until Saturday had not won a leg for more than a year.
“It’s been a good weekend for sure,’’ said Bevilacqua who stole a kiss from girlfriend and ironwoman Brielle Cooper as he ran up the beach for his win over Newport’s Jackson Borg.
In the women’s racing, defending champion Georgia Miller was knocked out early, clearing a path for Lana Rogers’s to extend her lead in the current series heading into the final two rounds at Kurrawa on February 3-4.