BRADLEY Weiss and Carina Wasle endured the heat and the difficult off-road trail and kept their crowns in the Xterra Danao Asia-Pacific Championship yesterday in Danao City.
Weiss finished at the top of the Pro Men’s division for the second straight year after beating Kiwi Sam Osborne in a footrace by less than a minute. The South African champion clocked 2:16:28, while Osborne, also last year’s runner-up, finished with a time of 2:17:17. Kieran McPherson of New Zealand had another third place finish for the second year in a row and crossed the line after 2:19:47.
“It was really enjoyable to have a shorter race. This is more definitely the type of race that Xterra athletes prefer. It’s definitely a faster and closer race, which us athletes prefer. It’s a really nice race, I was head-to-head with Sam and Ben (Allen). I’m very happy to take the win,” said Weiss after the race.
Aussie Ben Allen was the first one to finish the 1.5-kilometer swim and was followed by Osborne, Weiss and McPherson. Weiss, however, made up for it in the bike part of the race and got a huge advantage after Osborne had a problem with his bike.
Costly puncture
“I managed to get into the lead half way through the bike. Unfortunately Sam had a puncture. So that was when I managed to catch up with him, he and I rode together in the second lap. Starting the second lap of the bike, I did much better than in the first lap. So I tried to stay consistent. I pushed pretty hard in the run. Coming into the run, I opened up a small gap in the beginning of the race and I managed to hold it all the way to the end, so I couldn’t be happier,” Weiss said.
Allen finished at fourth place in 2:23:48, and was followed by French Fabien Combaluzier at fifth place with a time of 2:25:35.
Wasle, who breezed through last year’s course, was in a close fight to win the Pro Women’s division crown for the second straight year. The Austrian finished in 2:49:38 and was just ahead of second place Aussie Penny Slater by three minutes. Slater clocked in at 2:52:38. Wasle beat Slater by almost 30 minutes in last year’s race but this time, in a shorter race, it was closer.
Slater was up ahead in the swim by four seconds but Wasle caught up with her in the bike race.
“Jacqui (Allen) was only 70 seconds ahead but I caught up with her about four kilometers in the bike. From then on I was leading all the way,” said Wasle.
Jacqui, who was the fastest swimmer, wasn’t able to finish the bike part of the race.
“Last year was very hard, but this year was equally hard. It was very hot today so you have to push very hard. Maybe I was lucky that it was a little bit shorter,” said Wasle, who wasn’t used to the scorching heat as Europe just had its winter.
French Myriam Guillot-Boisset finished third place with 2:56:33, followed by Aussie Leela Hancox at fourth with a time of 3:03:58.