Del Corral, Bucher win XTERRA France Championship
Press Release / 15.07.2011
Spain's Victor Del Corral and Switzerland's Renata Bucher won the XTERRA France Championship in Xonrupt on Saturday, July 10. The victory marks the first XTERRA Championship ever for Del Corral, and the first of 2011 for Bucher (the four-time XTERRA European Tour Champion now has 22 career XTERRA victories).XTERRA Managing Director "Kahuna Dave" Nicholas was on site for the race and brings us this report...
In the north of France, another great European race with twists and turns and loads of entertainment. Race morning was sunny and warm as the 400 participants in XTERRA France Decouvert (discovery) headed out exactly on time at 8:15 a.m. Next, over 100 kids from 7-13 went out in real swim-bike-run races in 3 age groups and had some exciting battles. Size and gender mean nothing to kids; the girls and smaller boys were unbelievably fast.
About an hour before the championship race start the clouds came in and the rain started. The good news is it stopped just before the 2:00pm start. A great mass of 500 stood on the shore when the “bomb†went off and the game began.
Ben Allen, an Aussie living in France and fresh off a victory at XTERRA Brazil, killed the swim leading second-place by 30 seconds. Frenchman Benoit Augeux and an Englishman living in France, Asa Shaw, were next, followed by Olivier Marceau, Ronny Dietz, Yeray Luxem and the rest of the pack.
For the women, South African Carla van Huyssteen was first out of the water followed by Marion “Bubu†Lorblanchet. Lorblanchet muscled her way past the diminutive van Huyssteen leaving transition knowing that the "Swiss Miss" Renata Bucher would be strong on the bike. Bucher had what she termed a bad “sveem†and was more than three minutes behind Lorblanchet from T1 and had a lot of work to do.
The rains that came before the start had really soaked the trails but recall – the other races were finished before the rain started so the first lap was run on fairly fresh trails. But that did not last long. Soaked dirt and about 1,000 bike tires equal a mudfest. Marceau took the lead quickly followed by a very impressive Ronny Dietz. They were being caught, but not very quickly by Spaniard Victor del Corral Morales. Del Corral was second here last year and just won the ETU cross champ race in Hungary, so everyone knew he was strong on the bike and could run very quickly but he was still a bit unknown. Marceau’s classic get-out-in-front strategy blew up when dirt, rocks and whatever got into his drive gears and he had no small ring – only the big.
“It would just spin around and the chain never catch†Marceau said with a shrug. Now we knew why this fabulous athlete was pushing his bike up the steep Lorraine hills.
