Serrano, Wasle Win XTERRA Norway

Press Release / 03.09.2018

Roger Serrano from Spain and Carina Wasle from Austria captured the XTERRA Norway off-road triathlon elite titles in Norejfell on Saturday, September 1, 2018.
 
It’s the fourth win of the season for both Serrano and Wasle, and for Wasle, the win also secured her first XTERRA European Tour title after 14 years of racing.
 
The day started with cold conditions at the Norejfell Ski and Spa resort, so cold that with water temperatures at 13-degrees Celsius (about 55F) technical officials reduced the swim distance from 1500-to-750 meters.
 
In the elite men’s race Serrano jumped out to an early lead with the fastest swim of the day (10:44), followed by Peter Lehmann and Francois Carloni about 40-seconds back.
 
Carloni, the Tour leader, was able to catch up to Serrano on the first 16K loop of the bike, and that was by design according to Serrano. “I waited for François,” he explained.  “I didn’t want to do the whole race by myself and I know François was the best guy to ride with.”
 
Behind those two, Rui Dolores, Lehmann and Dominik Wychera were chasing hard to limit the gap, and then Carloni ran into some bad luck and lost Serrano.
 
“On the first technical downhill, I took a wrong line on some rocks and punctured,” said Carloni.  “I lost two minutes fixing it with a plug and CO2, but it eventually worked.”
 
Taking advantage of Carloni’s misfortune, Dolores moved into second, Wychera third, and Lehmann fourth with all three riding close together. By the end of the first lap on single track in the lower part of the mountain Serrano was well in front.
 
“When I saw François had a flat, I kept going by myself just trying to manage a good pace but not too fast knowing the run was going to be hard,” said Serrano.
 
Dolores was also unlucky and missed a turn sign, and by the time he realized his mistake it was too late to get back into the race.  Carloni, meanwhile, came back to pass Wychera and move into second place again by the time they reached the bike-to-run transition.
 
Serrano had two minutes on Carloni, 2:30 on Wychera, and 3:30 on Lehmann heading into the run. Tim Van Daele was 3:45 behind Serrano and Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen from Denmark was in sixth, four minutes back of the lead after posting the fastest bike split of the day in 1:24:37.
 
Serrano would emerge victorious, crossing the line just 24-seconds ahead of Lehmann, who put in the fastest run split on the day in 47:35 to pass Carloni for the runner-up position.
 
“I was happy to hold on today,” said Serrano.  “I normally eat dates during the bike, but I lost them, so I started to feel that I was low in energy during the run.” 
 
Lehmann said he was thrilled to finish in second-place for the second straight week. “I knew I would be fast on this last downhill part, it was perfect for me, so I ran as hard as possible and passed François on the last kilometer,” he said.
 
While Carloni was satisfied with third, he knew it could’ve been a better day.  “I was able to run all of steep sandy uphills and was quite confident, but sad at the same time knowing that flat on the bike might have cost me a chance at victory today,” he said.
 
Wychera finished in fourth and Sloth Nielsen, the young mountain bike specialist from Denmark, finished in fifth. 

In the women’s elite race, it was Wasle from wire-to-wire.  She posted the fastest swim, bike, and run splits to take the tape in 2:52:39, more than 17-minutes ahead of Jessica Roberts.
 
“Starting the bike already in the lead meant I could relax and go at my own pace rather than kill myself trying to catch the leader like I have to do at most races” said Wasle.
 
Wasle’s biggest threat came from Danish amateur Jenni Snangsberg who posted the fastest bike split of the day and ultimately finished second female on the afternoon and top amateur to earn a qualifying spot into XTERRA Worlds.
 
It was the 21st XTERRA World Tour win in Wasle’s career, but it wasn’t all perfect as she twisted her ankle on the last technical part of the run.
 
“It was really a stupid mistake. I just wasn’t concentrating enough, maybe looking at the view a little too much,” laughed Wasle. Even with the mistake she managed to post the best run split of the day with a time of 56:35.
 
As for Roberts, she said she was happy with the experience and good points towards the standings.
 
“Running off the bike after so much climbing was really hard,” said Roberts. “I could feel the lactate in my legs during the last uphill section. However, the view from the top was worth the hard work.”