Jackie Hering and Matthew Marquardt Win IRONMAN Pro Series Cairns

For the first time in the history of the event, two American professional triathletes took out the Cairns Airport IRONMAN Cairns triathlon titles, with Jackie Hering (USA) securing her third IRONMAN triathlon victory, while Matthew Marquardt (USA) claimed a maiden professional IRONMAN triathlon win. Both Hering and Marquardt claim the maximum 5,000 IRONMAN Pro Series points and each earn $18,000 USD for their wins.

Hering broke the tape in 8:42:15, almost four minutes ahead of defending IRONMAN Cairns triathlon champion Hannah Berry (NZL), with Australian-based Dutch athlete Lotte Wilms making it back-to-back podium finishes in Tropical North Queensland in third. 

Hering’s performance on Sunday was all the more remarkable given she only made the decision to head to Cairns in the last week, after not finishing at the Qatar Airways IRONMAN Hamburg European Championship triathlon in Germany a fortnight ago. 

Hering was fifth out of the water behind Rebecca Clarke (NZL), Wilms, Berry, and Regan Hollioake (AUS). Clarke held onto the lead for the first 30km of the bike before Wilms joined her, with Wilms then moving ahead, opening up a lead over the chasing pack of Hering, Berry, Hollioake and Clarke. 

Wilms was first back into Cairns, coming off the bike with a two-and-a-half-minute lead over Berry, with Hering a minute further back, but that lead quickly evaporated for Wilms as she searched for her watch, eventually beginning the run just 30 seconds in front of Berry. 

Berry and Hering chipped away at Wilms’ lead over the first 10km, with the trio coming together at the front before Hering upped the ante and moved ahead, running consistently quicker than her competition across the back half of the marathon on her way to an impressive victory.

“It feels great to win. This course was so beautiful, it was the best. I just loved it, it was so fun,” said Hering. “This is really good, it worked out much better than Hamburg, so super happy. Everything works out how it's meant to, these are very good points. I'm headed to Lake Placid next, and there's going to be some very strong ladies there, so we'll see how that shakes out. I bagged the Kona slot today, which was actually the number one most important thing, so that's sweet. Kona is on my birthday this year, so it should be really fun.”

In taking the victory today in Cairns, Marquardt became the first male professional from outside Australia or New Zealand to win the event in its 14-year history. The American crossed the finish line in 7:50:41 for his maiden professional IRONMAN triathlon victory.

“I mean, it's incredibly cool to [to be the first male professional triathlete from outside of Oceania to win IRONMAN Cairns]. I signed up for this race on a whim and certainly didn't have the most traditional build into this race with the cruise and everything in the long travel here, but I was really happy with the training that I put in in the off-season and I knew that a good race was there, I just didn't know when it was going to present myself,” said Marquardt. “So, to be able to put in a good performance and to be a groundbreaker, I guess, in that way is always incredibly meaningful and hopefully an inspiration to everyone else, because that's really what drives me more than anything else is to be a role model to others and to inspire people to do things that they can do themselves.” 

Australian athlete Nick Thompson was second over the line, less than three minutes behind Marquardt, with Australian-based Finnish athlete Henrik Goesch rounding out the podium. 

Athletes were faced with choppy conditions for the swim in Palm Cove, with South Africa’s Jamie Riddle hitting the front early and pushing on, finishing the 3.8km swim nine seconds up on Australia’s Josh Amberger, with Marquardt hot on his heels. Things quickly went south for Marquardt however, who limped his way through transition as he suffered from serious leg cramps, falling back to 16th early in the 180km ride, losing eight minutes to Riddle. 

Once Marquardt got his cramping issues under control he began chipping away on Riddle’s lead, with Thompson and fellow Australian Ben Hill joining the South African at the front of the field. The top three swapped positions at the front over the next 150km before Thompson surged ahead, coming into transition in Cairns almost two and a half minutes clear of Hill, with Marquardt working his way up to third. 

Thompson pushed the pace early on the run, opening up a four and a half minute lead over Hill, with Marquardt holding steady in third, before the American upped the pace, consistently taking time out of Thompson before moving into the lead with just over 10km to go and never looked back, crossing the line in front of thousands of spectators in the centre of Cairns.

At the Cairns Airport IRONMAN Cairns triathlon professional athletes were competing for a maximum of 5,000 IRONMAN Pro Series points, a total event pro prize purse of $125,000 USD, and five qualifying slots per gender to the 2025 IRONMAN World Championship triathlon in Nice (men) and Kona (women). 

Top Five Female Professional Results – IRONMAN Cairns

 
Top Five Male Professional Results – IRONMAN Cairns

News and Notes    

• Matthew Marquardt (USA) claimed his first ever professional IRONMAN triathlon win
• Jackie Herring (USA) won on her first trip to Australia, putting behind the disappointment of a DNF in Hamburg a fortnight ago 
• Jamie Riddle (ZAF) set the fastest swim of the day, covering the course in Palm Cove in 49:25
• New Zealand’s Rebecca Clarke was the quickest female in the ROKA swim, clocking a 52:12
  Australia’s Nick Thompson was the fastest male on the Zoot bike course, covering the 180km in 4:10:34
• Lotte Wilms (NLD) covered the bike course in 4:43:35, the fastest female professional
• America’s Matt Hanson clocked an impressive 2:30:21 on the HOKA run course, 21 seconds from dipping under the 2:30 marathon barrier
• Ben Hamilton (NZL) is the first male athlete to break the 10,000 IRONMAN Pro Series points barrier in 2025 and now leads the series with 11,072
• Hanson moved into second in the men’s standings, jumping 18 places while Marquardt’s victory and 5,000 points moved him up 25 positions into third
• Marquardt became the first non-Oceania male to win the iconic Australian event in its 14-year history
• Hering has climbed to third in the IRONMAN Pro Series women’s standings following her 5,000 points in Cairns, with New Zealand’s Hannah Berry climbing 30 places into fifth
• Wilms is now in the top 10 following her 4,711 point haul on Sunday, moving up 43 points into ninth overall
• Sunday’s race was the first time an Australian female was not on the professional women’s podium in the event’s history

Full results for the 2025 Cairns Airport IRONMAN Cairns triathlon can be found at www.ironman.com/races/im-cairns/results. For additional event information, please visit  www.ironman.com/races/im-cairns.
 
IRONMAN Pro Series Standings 
The IRONMAN Pro Series™ is a year-long performance-based triathlon race series with professional triathletes being able to earn points at 18 select races in 17 locations globally. Open to approximately 1,000 eligible professional triathletes worldwide, the IRONMAN Pro Series ushers in a new era of IRONMAN racing where Every Second Matters™ with every second behind the race winner equating to a point earned or lost. For any athlete, only their top five event results count towards their overall Pro Series points and standing, of which a maximum of three IRONMAN results can be counted. How it works can be found here.

Hering and Marquardt walked away with the maximum IRONMAN Pro Series points available for an IRONMAN triathlon of 5,000. Athletes finishing behind the race winner saw their points diminish by one, for every second that ticked off behind the race winner. Hering’s win advanced herself 15 places in the IRONMAN Pro Series standings, to sit in third overall. Berry’s performance took her to fifth overall, +30 places. Lotte Wilms also slides into the top ten in the standings, advancing a huge 43 places thanks to her 4,711 point gain today. There were numerous movers and shakers in the men’s field also, which impacted the overall standings, with Ben Hamilton (NZL) now topping the overall standings, moving up eight places, followed by Matt Hanson (USA) now in second, advancing 18 places, and Marquardt moved into third, advancing 25 places. Nick Thompson’s second place today moved him a whopping 34 positions ahead, into seventh, and Jarrod Osborne (AUS) also moves into the top ten, in eighth place, after advancing 21.

Overall IRONMAN Pro Series Standings – Top Five Female (After 10 Events)   

Overall IRONMAN Pro Series Standings – Top Five Male (After 10 Events)     

Full IRONMAN Pro Series standings can be found at proseries.ironman.com.

Overall IRONMAN Pro Series Event Prize Money
In addition to the IRONMAN Pro Series’ $1.7M year-end bonus prize pool, there is an event pro prize purse payout of $2,450,000, distributed across IRONMAN Pro Series events. With the first 10 IRONMAN Pro Series races complete, a total of $887,500 USD has been earned by professional athletes so far – leaving just over $1.5 million USD to be claimed at the remaining events. 

Top Five Female Prize Money Earned (After 10 Events)   

Top Five Male Prize Money Earned (After 10 Events)   

Next IRONMAN Pro Series Events Coming Up
Next up, the 2025 IRONMAN Pro Series heads back to Europe for the 2025 Mainova IRONMAN Frankfurt European Championship men’s-only professional race on Sunday 29 June.
 
For more information on the IRONMAN Pro Series, visit proseries.ironman.com