'It's really special': Sam Appleton on winning Ironman Australia in Port Macquarie

"Mum lives here in Port Macquarie, my dad drove up from Sydney, and I had my brother here as well, so it's really special," Appleton said after winning the 226-kilometre endurance race.

"I race around the world and so often it's just me at a lot of races. When you have your family watching you and supporting you, it means so much."

Appleton broke a longstanding course record to claim victory at Ironman Australia, finishing with an impressive time of 07:57:32.

According to Ironman Australia officials, this achievement marks the first time in the event's 37-year history that an athlete has completed the course in under eight hours.

Following closely behind Appleton was New Zealand athlete Mike Phillips, who crossed the finish line in 07:59:19, securing second place. Benjamin Hill rounded out the top three, finishing with a time of 08:01:51.

"It feels great to win," he said. "I feel I had some pretty good training leading into this, but I didn't really expect to be kind of on my own the whole day up until Mike caught me on the run.

"Then we had a bit of a battle for the back half of the marathon, which was really exciting, but I would have preferred a bit more space to be honest."

Appleton pushed hard from the start, opening up an almost three-minute lead over defending champion Steve McKenna after the 3.8km swim.

He continued to keep the pressure on the chasing pack throughout the bike leg, with his lead out to more than six minutes at some stages, eventually coming back into town two minutes clear of Hill and Phillips.

"I knew I wanted to swim pretty hard and get a gap on Mike and Ben Hill because they're such good riders, and I wanted them to work really hard to try and catch me," Appleton said.

"I think I might have taken a bit of the sting out of their legs for the run, so I guess my plan worked out pretty well."

Once onto the run, Phillips started chipping away at Appleton's lead, with the pair swapping positions throughout the marathon, before Appleton pulled away late to claim the win.

"Mike was running really, really strong, and he was running at a pace that I couldn't go with, but fortunately he slowed down and I was able to come back and overtake him again," he said.

"But it's exciting and makes for a great race. The crowd really loved it, and to be able to come out on top is really nice."

Appleton said winning Ironman Australia was "special".

"You put months and months of work into an Ironman," he said. "Last year, I did Ironman Western Australia and unfortunately had an accident and crashed halfway through the bike, so I was unable to finish.

"So to finish the year on that kind of downer was rough. Then to be able to come back and re-collect and train really hard and win here makes it even sweeter."