Ruzafa, Mueller win XTERRA Czech Championship

Press Release / 11.08.2014

Reigning and two-time XTERRA World Champion Ruben Ruzafa from Spain and Kathrin Mueller from Germany captured the XTERRA Czech Championship race in Prachatice on Saturday. With the win, his sixth straight this year, Ruzafa also captures the 2014 XTERRA European Tour Championship.  The Tour title is awarded to elites with the best cumulative score in six of 11 championship races and Ruzafa posted the perfect 600 score.  And the 35-year-old from Malaga did it against the best in the sport. He stormed through the fastest XTERRA men in Europe (Asa Shaw, Francois Carloni, Yeray Luxem), he held off the hard-charging Kiwi Braden Currie of New Zealand, he won against 7x World Champ Conrad “the Caveman” Stoltz in Italy two weeks ago, and today he took it to America’s-best, Josiah “Beast Mode” Middaugh. 

Ruzafa's win streak is now at seven straight since winning XTERRA Worlds last October with 2014 championship victories at Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Italy, and Czech.“Ruben took the lead early in the bike and that was that,” said XTERRA Managing Director Dave Nicholas.  “Ben and Braden were together early out of the swim and when Ruben went by, Braden went with him.  Alexander Haas caught and passed Josiah Middaugh and immediately crashed hard.  I suspect he broke his shoulder.  Josiah and Ben hung together until the second lap of the bike when Ruben just took off.   Josiah came into T2 just under two minutes behind Ruzafa and could not get close on the run.”

Ruzafa won by three minutes over Middaugh, with Ben Allen more than three minutes back of that in third.

Top 5 Men
Ruben Ruzafa, ESP - 2:40:44
Josiah Middaugh, USA - 2:43:53
Ben Allen, AUS - 2:47:25
Braden Currie, NZL - 2:48:24
Jan Kubicek, CZE - 2:54:06

In the women’s race Kathrin Mueller came out on top for the fourth time this season and increased her lead in the European Tour standings as well. 

“Kathrin simply never saw anybody.  She was actually ahead of Ruben and Josiah coming out of the water.  Jacqui Slack had a great swim and stayed in 2d the whole way.  Helena was well back out of the swim, was good on the bike and ran well but couldn’t catch Slack,” said Nicholas. 

Top 5 Women
Kathrin Mueller, GER - 3:05:18
Jacqui Slack, GBR - 3:10:23
Helena Erbenova, CZE - 3:12:58
Carina Wasle, AUT - 3:14:40
Renata Bucher, SUI - 3:16:20

With three races remaining in the European Tour Mueller leads Helena Erbenova 572 to 535 in the points standings.  At this stage only Erbenova has a mathematical shot at overtaking Mueller to win the title. “All in all the XTERRA Czech Championship was a fabulous event,” said Nicholas as he headed to the awards ceremony.  “The course was beautifully marked with lots of vollies, wonderful bands and great food.” Up next, the XTERRA Germany Championship race in Zittau on Saturday, August 16, which is doubling as the ITU Cross Tri World Championship.  After that XTERRA England and XTERRA Denmark on successive weekends to wrap up the European Tour.

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