Nutri-Grain Ironman champion Ali Day is on the verge of making Series history, today claiming his fifth consecutive win to remain undefeated.
With only one race remaining before the overall Nutri-Grain Ironman Series champion is crowned, Day could make history if he is able to take the clean sweep and make it six from six in tomorrow’s final.
Mentoring Day is the legendary Trevor Hendy, who summed up the 30 year olds performance in one word: “inspiring”.
“He’s incredible. He’s making his own history, he’s racing unbelievably,” said Hendy.
“It was always my goal to perfect the race, and I watched Shannon (Eckstein) do it and I thought wow, and I’ve just watched Ali do it today. When you perfect your craft, and you find your moment and you’re able to massage all those elements together into something amazing like he’s doing, it’s inspiring.
“He just wants to be the fastest he can be and he’s in his own sphere at the moment.
“And the cool thing is, he gets to start tomorrow in a good position and it doesn’t even really matter what he does tomorrow. He’s already creating history,” he said.
What makes Day’s results even more impressive is the fact he’s returned to the 2021 Nutri-Grain Ironman Series after more than 670 days away from the sport due to injury and COVID delays.
Paying attention to the field, and not trying to over power it, Day cruised through the individual races but consistently placed in the top five, ensuring he was never out of contention.
He found himself in the familiar poll position heading into the final Ironman. Bevilacqua managed to get on Day’s wash in the final board leg, the pair opening up a handy lead heading into the swim.
But Day stamped his dominance to extend his lead in the swim leg pulling away from Bevilacqua and in the final ski leg making no mistakes to again be first to greet the winning tape.
“I was thinking on the way in on the ski [last leg] ‘how good is this’?,” said Day.
“I couldn’t have scripted it better. But the main goal is tomorrow – I love winning the races but I want to win a Nutri-Grain Ironman Series. That’s my goal now, and it always has been my goal.
“Whether that meant getting one race, or winning six races I don’t really care. I just want to win overall.
“Today was hard. We’ve raced five rounds now already, and then with a run leg at the start, in this heat, was really tough. In saying that, I really enjoyed how competitive it was.
“I just said to myself if I could put myself in the top five off the line, I could consolidate another result. That was the goal today, it was never about trying to win or prove myself or trying to win five races in a row.
“It was more about setting myself up for the day, getting another result and putting myself in the box seat for tomorrow,” he said.
In the battle for the minor placings, BMD Northcliffe’s Matt Bevilaqua took second place with a tight run up the beach seeing Jy Timperley cross for his fifth podium finish.
For the full results from today and the current leader after round five click here.
To catch up on today’s action head to 9NOW click here.
Tune into tomorrow’s final and sixth round LIVE on Channel 9 from 12pm-2pm nationally.