Marceau, Lorblanchet win XTERRA Italy

Press Release / 31.05.2011

Three-time Olympian Olivier Marceau, who has been one of XTERRA's best for 10 years now, won the XTERRA Italy Championship for the fourth time on Sunday in 2:29:14, just 27-seconds faster than German standout Ronny Dietz.

In the women's race Marion "Bubu" Lorblanchet, the defending XTERRA European Tour Champion, edged four-time Euro Tour champ Renata Bucher to win the first race of the European XTERRA season.

"Kahuna Dave" Nicholas, the managing director of the XTERRA World Tour, was at the race and brings us this report...

A perfect day. Sun, beautiful blue water, a breeze all day, temperature about 78-degrees. So perfect that all the athletes were on the line early and the race started at 9:55 a.m. rather than 10:00!

Olivier Marceau Wins XTERRA Italy ChampionshipIt was nearly perfect for Olivier Marceau (pictured above courtesy jacvan-trihebdo) as well. He won with 30 seconds to spare over Germany’s Ronny Dietz, but it did not start as well as he wanted. Coming out of the water just a minute behind Australia’s Ben Allen, Marceau did his usual quick transition – oops! – he ran towards Bike Out and realized he did not have his shoes on. Unbelievable as it seems, Marceau had not clipped his shoes to his pedals and totally forgot about them. This resulted in a T1 of almost a minute where his usual is about 40 seconds. So, all you age groupers, have hope – even World Champions make mistakes.

Ben Allen is an Aussie living in France and racing triathlon for his living. He came out of the water first and led the bike for almost the entire first lap. Marceau took over before the pontoon bridge and came into T2 a little over a minute ahead of Dietz and Allen. Dietz was on a mission. Ronny has raced XTERRA for years and has been German champion and Euro Tour winner a few times – today he turned in the fastest bike and the fastest run but came up 27 seconds shy of being Italian Champion. As he ran by me on the beach, Ronny shook his fist high and yelled “It was the perfect day”.

Allen was able to stay with the quick German on the run but felt his hamstring tightening. About 1K from the finish he had to pull up and do a quick self-massage and limp in to a fabulous 3rd and his first XTERRA podium. Fourth and fifth went to Belgium with Jim Thijs posting the 5th fastest mountain bike time of the day and held off Yeray Luxem by just 22 seconds at the end. Nico Lebrun was a disappointing 6th. At the final K marker he smiled and shrugged his shoulders and said “I am dead – still sick”. He will be back and ready for Richmond in two weeks.