Murphy has had a solid run of form over the last half of the season picking up three top 10 finishes in his last three races.

Since those races Murphy had returned home to complete a final block of training before the last race of the season in Morocco.

Murphy also enjoyed Triathlon Ireland’s annual awards dinner where he watched fellow squad member, Gavin Noble, be crowned Vodafone Triathlete of the Year.

Following his solid block of training Murphy exited the water in a small group with the leaders. He remained there throughout the bike leg and finished off with a 36:27 10km run to finish some 50 seconds clear of Phil Wolfe of Great Britain.

In long-distance triathlon, Eimear Mullan was testing herself in a strong field at the Lanzarote 70.3 Ironman.

Lanzarote is famed for its tough course with the 70.3 race consisting of the 1.9km ocean swim, 90.1km hilly bike followed by a 21.1km run.

After the swim Mullan was some four minutes down on the leader.

Her 2hr 57min bike leg kept her in the hunt for a top-10 finish, but the leaders had built too big an advantage to be challenged.

Mullan’s strength is the run and she put it to good use setting the second fastest split of the day in 1hr 23mins. That brought her right through the field and up to 6th place.

Mullan will now take an end-of-season break before getting back into winter training with a view to building on her success in 2012.