Serrieres, Zemanova Win XTERRA Lake Garda

Press Release / 08.06.2022

Arthur Serrieres and Jindriska Zemanova captured the third annual XTERRA Italy - Lake Garda off-road triathlon elite titles in Toscolano-Maderno on Saturday, June 4, 2022, with winning times of 2:49:13 and 3:30:11, respectively.

It's the 16th career XTERRA World Tour win for Serrieres (FRA) and the second for Zemanova (CZE).

The race combined a 1.5km swim with a 31km mountain bike and 11km trail run. The day’s hot and humid weather made one of the most difficult challenges in XTERRA even harder.

In the men’s elite race Jens Roth (GER) was first out of the water followed closely by Maxim Chane (FRA) and those two rode together for much of the bike and entered T2 at the same time. Serrieres, who was about two minutes back after the swim, made up close to one-minute on the bike section, then blitzed the run as has become his signature to take the tape by nearly four minutes.

“That was as good as I could’ve done today, really difficult course and conditions,” said Serrieres, who won at XTERRA Portugal two weeks ago and will be the top contender heading into the World Cross Triathlon Championships this Wednesday in Romania.

Chane held off Serrieres until the top of the climb on the run and then took a wrong turn and lost one-minute or so but still managed to hold on to second-place ahead of a hard charging Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen (DEN).

“Hot day, hard race. I just tried to pace myself and once on the run I pushed,” said Chane.  “Arthur caught me at the top, then he left, and I got lost. I still would’ve been second, but I wished for a better race. I’ll get another chance.”

Sebastien Carabin (BEL) ran his way into fourth position, with Roth in fifth.

Zemanova All The Way

In the women’s race, led from wire to wire, posting the fastest swim and bike times to take a commanding lead into the run.

“This is the hardest race on the European Tour, and in this hot weather it was really crazy,” said Zemenova. “I’m really very happy to take the win today, it was such a challenging race.”

Morgane Riou (FRA) posted the fastest run of the day to finish second, ahead of Camille Jobard (FRA) taking third in her first elite race.

Hana Odlova (CZE), who won the 25-29 XTERRA World Championship in Maui last December, finished fourth and Emma Briggs (GBR) was fifth. It was their first races as elites as well.