Posted: June 18, 2004

Triathlon: Xterra Netherlands gears up for strong field

Xterra Netherlands will be the fourth off road triathlon of a series of five, which will be held in Europe this summer. Xterra originally started of in the USA but is now spreading more and more across the world.

Xterra off road triathlons are now held in New Zealand, Japan, Australia and in the USA, but are coming to Europe for the second year in a row. With each Xterra there are slots to be won for the Xterra World Championship held on Hawaii at the end of October.

The Xterra European Tour is a league of it own with races held in Austria, the Czech Republic, Italia, the Netherlands and Germany.

Last year the Dutchmen Royce Kortekaas was able to win the Xterra European Tour but with an extra two more races this year, it is going to be a difficult task to repeat. Frenchman Nicholas Lebrum is among one of the favourites to beat Royce this year. American Jamie Withmore had an easy victory last year with 3 straight wins in a row. This year she will be challenged by fellow countrywoman Candy Angle or otherwise by finishing last year 2de Ute Schäffer from Germany.

The tension among the top athletes is rising and with a total price money of more than € 50000,- they can't miss out on any one of these races or they will miss valuable point and money in the series.

With all the races more or less the same, with 1500 meter swimming in a lake and 30k mountainbiking and 10k running, the Netherlands edition stand out off the crowd.

Xterra Netherlands consist of a 1500 meter swim in the North Sea, which will be done in two round of 750 meters so the athletes will have to brake through the waves two times. Secondly due to the lack of mountains it will be a beach race for the bike and the run. This means a lot of sand in the chain and especially a different set of tires. Best advise will be to be carefull not to get stuck in the soft sand and hammer the bike on the hard. The Dutch's themselves are in favour on this course, demonstrated with three podium places for men last year. The competition learns fast from their mistakes but will it be fast enough for this years edition held on the 10th of July at Kijkduin, Netherlands.

The race website is at: www.xterranetherlands.com.