A new name took the Island's women's road racing scene by storm to win the PartnerRe 5K from defending champion Victoria Fiddick on Sunday morning.

Only two weeks after finishing in the UCI Road World Championships cycling race over 138 kilometres, Australian professional cyclist Nikki Egyed ran a solid pace around the testing course to win in 18 minutes and 33 seconds, some 16 seconds from Fiddick.

Egyed only arrived in Bermuda on Friday. She is engaged to cyclist and triathlete Tyler Butterfield, and the day before was told about the event by her future aunt-in-law Peggy Couper.

Going into the race the 26-year-old had no idea who the other leading runners would be, other than spotting Fiddick warming up and commenting to Couper that she looked competitive, whereupon she was told that Fiddick was the reigning champion.

It was Fiddick who led the field of just under 300 in the early stages. Behind the runners a further 500 walkers filled the course from the Botanical Gardens to Lovers Lane in Paget and back to the Botanical Garden via South Shore and Tee Street.

It was on the uphill section at Lovers Lane that Egyed drew level with Fiddick and then began to edge ahead.

She said: "I went at my own pace. After I caught her I kept running at my own speed. Peggy had told me she was a good runner."

As they passed the south gate of the Botanical Gardens the gap between the runners had lengthened to 10 metres. Fiddick was not giving up the chase, but she could not make up the ground as Egyed powered home strongly.

Egyed is a former triathlete, who now makes her living as a pro-cyclist which she admitted gives her a distinct advantage as her life revolves around training and fitness – further helped by being in the kind of shape that allowed her to finish 15th at the ICI World Championships on September 27.

She lives in Brisbane, Australia and Spain, but is now preparing to switch to Colorado, USA.

While Fiddick was using the race as a final warm-up before running in next weekend's Toronto Half Marathon, coming home in 18.49, third-placed Kim McMullen was using it as a tester to see how well she has recovered from her marathon personal best set in Berlin two weeks' ago.

McMullen ran 3.04.27 in the German city to take 11 minutes off her previous best, and did so by running a negative split race – the second half faster than the first.

On Sunday she ran 19.59 and was pleased to have secured an untroubled third place slot.

"I got into a pace I wanted to at the start. I love this race and I wanted to take part even though I would not be able to keep up with the likes of Victoria," she said.

By putting in a lot of track training, McMullen has maintained good basic speed, as was evident from her finishing time on a sunny day with rising humidity that added to the challenge for the competitors.

Karen Bordage, one of the race organisers, said the event had been well received with hundreds of youngsters taking part in a 3.2K race before the main event, and families enjoying the ambient atmosphere afterwards in the Botanical Gardens where a breakfast was laid on for runners and walkers.

She thanked the sponsors and said proceeds of the race would go to The Family Centre.