Six foot swells and sweltering heat at Maroubra dished up a tough day at the office for the third round of the Shaw and Partners Iron Series.

With Sydney set to record one of the hottest days of the summer, peaking at 43 degrees, the Series was moved to earlier in the day to be held from 8-10am. Despite the shift, sweltering heat combined with the big surf saw plenty of carnage and race favourites relegated to the back packs.

Former Australian Ironwoman champion Naomi Scott (Northcliffe) took her first round win of the summer, navigating the strong surf conditions to take the win ahead of Analise Kibble (Newport) and defending Series champion Lucy Derbyshire (Surfers Paradise).

Scott’s performance made even more impressive, with the 25 year old spending the last three weeks on placement with NSW Ambulance, as she is studying Paramedic Medicine.

“The last three weeks have been 12 hour day and 12 hour night shifts, so I’ve just been fitting in a bit of training around that. Recovering from the no sleep has been a bit of a challenge, but I’ve been really enjoying it – I haven’t had too much time to think about this weekend, which I think for me is quite good because it kept me quite relaxed.

“It was exciting racing today, I always love racing in the ocean when there is big surf… there was no room for hesitation out there because the waves were really gnarly,” she said.

In the Ironman, rising star Callum ‘CJ’ Brennan took his second series win of the season in only his second season racing. Brennan is now within four points of Series leader and five time Series champion Ali Day.

“I’m over the moon to get another win. I just wanted to put myself up there, and have a good race. I knew if everything went well I could push the front, and I did. I’m just so stoked.

“Bevy had the better line, and I had to track it south and I fell off…had to use my body surfing skills to get to the beach and got up first,” he said.

Rounding out the podium it came to run up the beach with Charlie Verco gaining his first podium to finish second place narrowly ahead of former Series champion Matt Bevilacqua.

The Shaw and Partners Iron Series returns to Maroubra beach tomorrow 12:30-2:30pm AEDT, live and free on Channel 10 and 10Plus.