Azevedo, Crowley reign in IM 70.3 Davao

Portugal's Filipe Azevedo and Sarah Crowley of Australia fueled their respective title bids in the bike leg then held off their rivals' fightback in the grueling closing run to crown themselves the 2023 Alveo IRONMAN 70.3 Davao champions at the Azuela Cove in Davao on Sunday.

Azevedo, 30, figured in a three-way battle with Serbian Ognjen Stojanovic and Tuan Chun Chang of Taiwan in swim then took command by nearly four minutes over Chang with a blistering pace in bike (2:00:17) by Transition 2. He then lived through the punishing run (1:20:38) in hot conditions to prevail in 3:51:09 over the 1.9k swim-90k bike-21k run distance event powered by Petron.