Triathlon Australia (TA) has honoured Brad Kahlefeldt and Emma Snowsill for their outstanding 2006 seasons at an awards function in Hobart.

Kahlefeldt won the 2006 athlete of the year award, which was judged by his peers.

He took out the Commonwealth Games gold medal and also snared four World Cup races.

Overall, he won 10 races last year from 13 starts.

Emma Snowsill, who won the athlete of the year title in 2005, and Kahlefeldt were also honoured for the best performances of the year.

Snowsill won the honour for her third world championship - she also took out the Commonwealth Games title.

TA jointly gave the award to Kahlefeldt for his four World Cup wins in the one season.

The awards only covered TA's high-performance program, which focuses on the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Olympic-distance world titles and the World Cup series.

This means other outstanding performances last year from Australian triathletes outside the program were not eligible.

Michellie Jones became the first Australian woman to win triathlon's most famous race, the Hawaiian Ironman, while Craig Alexander won the inaugural Ironman 70.3 world title.

Chris McCormack was second at Hawaii and also became the first man to win Ironman Australia five times.

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