Olivier Marceau and Marion Lorblanchet won the XTERRA Switzerland Championship in Prangins
Dave Nicholas / 02.10.2010
Aussie Ben Allen, making his first XTERRA appearance, led Olivier Marceau out of the two lap swim with about 280 of their best friends following. Olivier quickly got the lead on the first 17K lap, but Allen was hanging tough. Franky Batelier was his usual powerful self and pulled his way up to second before suffering a race ending flat tire. He was philosophic about his bad luck and cheered his fellow competitors on the entire race. Young Belgique Yeray Luxem is the story of the race with a personal best 2nd overall just 2 minutes behind Marceau. At 24 years of age he just keeps getting quicker and quicker. We could see the potential earlier in the year with a 4th in Portugal and top 10’s in Italy and France.
The race for third was as tight as one could ask. Ian Leitch came out of the water about 3 minutes back from the leaders in 38th place. He rode like a demon posting the fastest bike and came into T2 in 7th. This Brit can run. At the end of the first 5K lap he had pulled himself up to 3rd place about 1 meter in front of Ronny Dietz. Ronny has had bad luck this season and it was great to see this German Champion having a trouble free race. At the start of the 2nd run lap Ronny passed back in front of Leitch but the Englishman would not give up or give in. They stayed together the entire lap, but Ian’s efforts on the bike and the first run lap finally caught up to him and he had to settle in 30 seconds behind Ronny for a fabulous 4th overall but with the fastest bike and run times.
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