2008 was known as the "Year of the Spaniards" with dominant years by Alberto Contador (Giro and Vuelta champion), Carlos Sastre (Tour de France champ), Samuel Sanchez (Olympic champion), a second place finish at Ironman by Eneko Llanos and a dominant year by Javier Gomez in ITU triathlon (who won everything but the Olympics). Add in Rafel Nadal's amazing summer of 2008, and it seemed that Spain owned everything sporting in 2008.
2009 can now definitely be called the "Year of the Brits". As if great seasons by Mark Cavendish (did he ever lose a sprint?), Alistair Brownlee (perfect in ITU championship races), and Chrissie Wellington (she never loses either) are not enough, this weekend included more of the same.
Two follow-up races to Kona are the Xterra Worlds, held every year a week after Kona in Maui. A few Ironman pros attempt the Kona-Xterra double, but mainly this is the weekend for those offroad triathletes to get their time in the spotlight. For multiple time world champions like Conrad Stoltz, Jamie Whitmore, and Canadian Melanie McQuaid, this is the one race that can define a career. With a unique 1500m swim, 30 km mountain bike, and 11 km trail run distance, this event has even been won by short-course specialists like Michellie Jones and Hamish Carter.
As you might have guessed from the introduction, the Brits did come to play in Xterra today. Julie Dibens, the 2007 and 2008 Xterra champion, quickly broke away on the bike to open up a huge lead over the rest of the women's field. She had over a 4 minute lead off the bike over Melanie McQuaid (a 3 time winner herself) and would not be challenged as she won by almost 8 minutes over Lesley Peterson, who is, yup, from Great Britain. McQuaid did finish third for her 7th career podium finish at Xterra Worlds. She's the Peter Reid of Xterra! So congrats to Dibens and to Melanie McQuaid for representing Canada so well again.
A quick note on the men's race. Before he was known as an Ironman threat, Eneko Llanos of Spain had won Xterra worlds twice (2003 and 2004). However, today, just 15 days after Kona where he had finished 14th overall, he outran fulltime Xterra pros Nicolas Lebrun, Olivier Marceau, and Conrad Stoltz to win his third Xterra world title. He joins McQuaid, Stoltz, and Dibens as a three time champ.
Quick Canadian content update - McQuaid was joined by two other Canadian women in the top 10 - Danelle Kabush was 7th and Christine Jeffrey was 8th. Our men weren't quite as fortunate as we were last year, when Brent McMahon and Mike Vine finished 3-4. This year, Vine was 12th and Kelly Guest was 16th. Also congrats to Calgary athletes Cal Zaryski and Sheri Foster for becoming world champs in their respective age groups.
One more for your Great Britain fans. As if having world champs in ITU racing, Ironman racing, and Xterra racing was not enough, you can add one more. The ITU Long Course world championships were also held this weekend in Perth, Australia. the 3k-8-k-20k format means that both short-course and long-course athletes can try for an ITU world title. This race actually used to be a 4k-120k-30k format until 2007, and Ironman athletes like Greg Welch, Simon Lessing, Luc Van Lierde, Torbjorn Sindballe, Eneko Llanos and Chrissie Wellington have all previously won this event. Now, with it's close-to-70.3 distance, but without the Ironman brand, and with a spot on the calendar between Kona and Clearwater, it sort of loses a bit of prestige since many pros regularly skip it. The 2009 event was supposed to be a nice post-Kona showdown between the dominant 70.3 champion Tim O'Donnell and Kona champion Craig Alexander, but Alexander decided to skip the race at the last minute. This left O'Donnell as the clear fave, and he won by a minute to show the rest of the world that he might be the best middle-distance racer in the world.
On the women's side, it was yet another dominant win by Great Britain. Jodie Swallow, who races ITU short-course mainly, absolutely dominated and won by over 10 minutes over hometown fave Rebekah Keat, who was hoping for some vindication after getting disqualified at Kona. But Swallow was first out of the water, lead by 8 minutes off the bike, and cruised to an 11 minute win. What can't the Great Britain athletes win? I guess Joel Filliol is doing an okay job over there...
More coming real soon...lots of racing news still to cover!
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