Xterra World Championships
Xterra Racing
Richard Ussher / 30.10.2011
For the first time in its history the Xterra World Champs changed location this year from Makena on the southwestern side of Maui to Kapalua on the northwestern side. It was evident immediately on arrival that the course was going to be a vastly different challenge. Another unique change was the course being open for practice prior to the race meaning everyone knew come race day what we were in for.
By the time race day rolled around I’d had several excursions around various parts of the course and several excursions off it too. Having broken my seat post my first year and last year almost breaking myself I was keen to find where the limits were, especially on the bike and so after several practices I was already minus a few layers of skin off one knee especially as I pushed the limit just that bit too much.
This year there was a super deep field in the men’s race and several stars from the ITU racing. One of the really cool things about Xterra is even though everyone is ultra focused on producing the best result possible there is still a really relaxed attitude amongst all the competitors.
On the start line I ended up having a chat with Jan Frodeno the current Olympic champion, who admittedly was on holiday but which goes a long way to showing what a cool atmosphere there is there. The race was also playing host to one of the biggest names in sport, Lance Armstrong. He is certainly a polarizing figure but love or hate him there is no doubting his pulling power with not only the media but also the general public. Having come from a triathlon background and recently showing he still had it over the multiple disciplines at the USA nationals everyone was keen to see how he would fair this time around.
<b>Race time</b>
The swim leg was held off DT Flemings beach, where for a while the forecast looked like we’d have some quite major surf to contend with.
Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you prefer your swim it was dead flat for the start and with the sound of the start canon we were off.
I seemed to get a bit swamped at the start but was able to get a little space just on the side of the pack and was soon into a good rhythm and moving through the field. A group of the quickest swimmers was off the front including Jan Frodeno, Ivan Rana, and Armstrong who was showing he’d lost none of his swimming skills. See All Event Posts
