Ruzafa, Poor win XTERRA Portugal

Press Release / 05.06.2018

Ruben Ruzafa from Spain and Brigitta Poor from Hungary, captured the 5th annual XTERRA Portugal in Golega, the famous Lusitano horse breed capital on May 02 2018.
 
With his victory on Saturday, the first in the 2018 Euro Tour,  Ruzafa is setting a new record, as he won all the 5 editions of XTERRA Portugal. For Poor, is the 2nd title in Portugal and 3rd for this year as she snatches the lead from Nicole Walters who had 6 days on top
 
In the women's race Brigitta Poor was first of the water, "I'm very satisfied with my swim today although my second loop was little bit slower. Training has been going very well this year but after XTERRA Greece where I was not strong enough I felt quite nervous before this race, now I'm satisfied with my result." said Poor.
Carina was not far behind in second position, about 30 seconds, "when I entered transition I saw Brigitta was still there which felt good and I knew I had not lost that much time in the swim" said Carina.
Third into T2 was age group athlete, Ana Gay Parraga and fourth was Eva Garcia Gonzalez from Spain "The swim went better than I thought, I felt great and even enjoyed it today" said Eva.
 
This one loop bike course starts with a flat 5 km session on tarmac, fire roads and thru a few plantations. It was here where Brigitta was way more powerful than Carina and was able very quickly to put a minute on the Austrian who didn't have the same legs as she did in Italy a week ago. After about 12km, Brigitta was already 4'30'' ahead of her and was pushing hard as always "I was very proud of the fact that I managed to ride all the technical parts of the bike course"  Carina switch the survival mode and this point.
"I was really not 100% recovered from last week and knew that today would be a long day out" said Wasle.
At this point, Eva moved up to 3rd position  "Even thoughI had a crash, I liked these technical descents"
 
Entering T2 Brigitta started to relax a little bit "On the last part of the bike I started to slow down and save my legs for the run" said Poor.  She started the run with an 8 minute lead, even though she had no idea, she knew that she didn't have to worry two much. Behind her, Carina had this information and took it a little easier  "knowing the big gap I had on Brigitta, I didn't push and start to think about Belgium next week, and just wanted to make sure that I did not get caught by Eva coming up behind me" said Carina.
 
Eva was smiling as always and very happy about her first podium in the Elite category of the European tour. Aina Picas from Spain finished 4th and Mariana, Brugger from Brazil managed fifth.

In the mens race Alejandro Pareja Vilar from spain was the first out of the water, he finished 9th overall and was the first agr group athlete to finish. Second into T1 was Tiago Maia from Portugal, they were followed by a group made up of Ander Lazkano ,Peter Lehmann from Germany, Rui Dolores our local hero and defending champion Ruben Ruzafa. The only big name missing was Golega lover was Yeray luxem from Belgium.
"I had lots of trouble this winter and really started training property about 4 weeks ago" said Luxem.
 
After about 6km on the bike loop and before entering the technical and hilly sections,  we saw a big group of athletes riding together. Ruben was the leading the train and we wondered who will dare to follow! At this point, Rui, Peter, Jose Estrangeiro and a few other Portugese athletes where trying to follow the powerful Spaniards. Tim van Daele was not far behind along side fast age group swimmer Steve Fergusson. Ander Lazkano was no where to be seen. "I was riding well with the group at the start of the bike but had trouble with my chain and lost them".

It was in the middle of the bike loop, when the serious work started, Ruben put the hammer down quickly build a big lead. "In this race you need to feel the ground and the traction through the bike, it's very technical and difficult to be fast here, that why I like this MTB course". Behind him the the fight was on between Peter and Rui with Jose trying to catch them. Yeray was able to make up a few places using his technical skills, even then you are not 100% fit you never loos the ability to ride these tricky sections fast.

Finishing the bike, Ruben had a big 6' lead on the Rui/Peter tandem. "I felt very good on the start of the bike, but after the ¾ of  the ride I really had to push to stay with Rui and was really worry for the run" said Peter. But Finally his legs were good and he crossed the line in second just like in Norway in 2017. Rui pick up a large cut on his foot whilst going for a training run on Friday and we know that he would be suffering come run course. But for him, finishing 3rd here is a big deal. "I'm very happy, this is my first podium, and at home, but also I'm the national champion, so a big day for me. Ander finish in 4th not fare from the podium and Tim came home in 5th place, he had a fantastic day here in Golega.