Maloy the first US men's winner at Noosa

Joe Maloy was all over the shop before the start of Sunday's Noosa Triathlon, which he readily admits is pretty much par for the course.

But more importantly he was all business once the race got underway.

The 30-year-old broke the race wide open with a dominant bike leg and maintained a one-minute advantage throughout the 10km run to become the first American winner on Sunday in the 33-year history of the event.

"I think it worked to my advantage, being a little bit unfamiliar to most of these guys," said Maloy.

"There might have been a sense of `just let him go, he'll come back' and I took my chances with it."

Maloy cut a composed figure after the race, in contrast to his chaotic build-up.

"There's always something with me - I'm pretty absent-minded," he said after clocking a winning time of one hour 47 minutes and four seconds.

"I forgot my timing chip in my bag and I asked the officials `is that a big deal?'

"They told me I had seven minutes to go and get it so it ended up being a nice warm-up."

Maloy had also mistakenly entered himself in an age-group division, rather than the professional event.

"When I got here it was like `oh no, I will have to pay for this plane ticket, I need to get in that pro division'," he said before picking up the winner's prize of $15,600.

"After a couple of back and forths, the organisers were very helpful and fortunately we got it sorted."

There are still three vacancies on the the US men's team for the Rio Olympics and Maloy's main goal for 2016 is to snare one of them.

It's a similar situation for Australian Ryan Fisher, who finished 49 seconds behind Maloy in second place on Sunday.

Aaron Royle - who was unable to defend his Noosa title due to a torn calf muscle - is the only Australian man to have locked down an Olympic berth ahead of the main qualifying race on the Gold Coast in April next year.

"It's the pinnacle of our sport for the short-course athletes and growing up, it was always my dream when I started out in triathlon," said the 24-year-old Fisher, who also finished second at Noosa back in 2012.

"The first real goal I ever had was to make an Olympic team."