Currie Pipped by Middaugh in Closest Ever XTERRA Finish

Press Release / 19.09.2016

Josiah Middaugh out-stretched Braden Currie at the finish line to take the tape by 7/100th of a second and win the inaugural XTERRA Pan America Championship race on a beautiful day at Snowbasin Resort near Ogden, Utah.  It’s the closest finish in XTERRA’s 21-year-history, 2:20:23.57 to 2:20:23.64.

In the women’s elite race Suzie Snyder came out of the water with Julie Baker, was first out of the swim-to-bike transition, took a five-minute lead onto the run and won the race in 2:51:51, exactly three minutes ahead of runner-up Lizzie Orchard of New Zealand.  With the wins both Middaugh and Snyder also secured the elite XTERRA Pan Am Pro Series titles.

“I don’t think it could have gotten any closer than that,” said Middaugh, the reigning XTERRA World Champion from Eagle-Vail, Colorado who finished 26-seconds ahead of Currie at the USA Championship held on this same course last year.

The race combined a one-mile swim in the 65-degree waters of Pineview Reservoir, an 18-mile mountain bike that climbed 3,000-feet to the top of Sardine Peak at 7,400-feet, and finished with a gruelling 6-mile trail run.

Currie came out of the water with a big pack of strong swimmers led by Brad Zoller, Alex Martinek, Felipe Barraza, and Leon Griffin – took the lead early on with Leon Griffin close behind, then started to pull away from everybody but Middaugh.  Currie came into the bike-to-run transition roughly 30-seconds up on Middaugh and held the lead until the last yard of the run.

“To be honest I was coming down that hill and I had about five seconds on him when I last looked and I knew I couldn’t afford to look back and so I didn’t really know how close he was until I saw him right on my shoulder which was right on the finish,” said Currie.  “I just did everything I could, and the last thing I thought was maybe if I get something across the line before him then I would win, but obviously that wasn’t quite right.”

Middaugh was hoping it wouldn’t be that close, but in his efforts to catch Currie he crashed twice on the run.

“I was not saving anything at any time today,” said Middaugh.  “I was putting everything into the course every minute of the day and I wanted to make the catch half-way through the bike and I didn’t do that, and I didn’t make the catch at the top of the climb. I got within 30-seconds going into the run. I was like ‘okay, I got to get close in this first mile’, and I got a little bit closer and thought ‘I got to make this catch by the top of this mile’ and I didn’t make the catch.  I was like 10-15 seconds behind with 2 miles to go and that last 2 miles I kept getting within 10 seconds of Currie then I would fall, because I was just like hanging it all out there and I caught my toe on some rocks, tumbled, got back up. I fell twice and with less than a mile to go I was just 5 seconds behind and then all of a sudden I started feeling tired and wasn’t sure if I had anything left and then I started working hard again and I came in with about 5 seconds and I was like ‘okay this is it’ one last full on kick and see if it’s enough.”

It was enough, but by the slimmest of margins.

“Obviously I came here to win and I’m absolutely gutted not to,” said Currie, who was runner-up to Middaugh at XTERRA Worlds last year as well.  “Josiah has a massive stride on him and I knew if it was going to be a downhill sprint finish with Josiah that it wouldn’t be that easy, so I was just going to try everything that I could and if my toe got across first then I’ll take that as a win.”

Interestingly, in the pictures and videos it looks as if Currie slide his leg under the finish arch and over the timing mat ahead of Middaugh, but his timing chip was on his back trailing leg which was behind Middaugh’s timing chip.

“This is the deepest field that I have ever seen at this race, it was almost like a World Championship,” said Middaugh.  “We just had strong guys and it was just hardcore racing from start to finish, I mean the swim was fast, the bike was action packed the whole way, it was just full throttle the entire race.”

Leon Griffin came home third almost four minutes back, with Felipe Barraza in fourth and Rom Akerson in 5th.

“I had a great swim, me and Braden tried to get away but he was just too strong over the top of the first climb,” said Griffin. “I thought that if I would have kept him in check I would have been a little bit closer on the downhill because that is where I lose a lot of time.  In the end, I was just stoked to come in third off the bike, I just needed to hold that. My running is coming back and I picked up a few things from the last race in Beaver Creek that I could work on and the half a dozen runs that I did between Beaver Creek and this one on the mountain were all just pure mountain climbing style.”