Youth in the spotlight on day two of XTERRA
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On the second day of XTERRA World Championship triathlon racing, youth were the focus as the sport looked to its future with a series of sprint triathlons Sunday, Oct. 11.
Athletes ages 13-19 ran shorter courses than the elite triathlons run Oct. 10, making for shorter times.
The best racer of the day was Ondrej Plic of Czhecia, a 17 year old wasn’t going to be satisfied winning just the Youth B division he wanted to win the entire race.
He met his goal, finishing with a time of 1:16:11, more than two-and-a-half minutes ahead of U.S. athlete Lucas Wright, winner of the Junior Men’s division race. It was Plic’s third straight world title, finishing first in the Youth B last year and Youth A a year before that, both in Italy.
“I wanted to repeat the results from the last two years, so I’m very happy I managed to win,” Plic said. “The course here was really technical and similar to a regular mountain bike race course, so it suits me well.”
Plic’s time was eight minutes ahead of Joren Aardema-Gagnon in second place in the Youth B race, utilizing his skill on the downhill portion of the bike trail to open up a big lead after exiting Grindstone Lake on the race’s first leg.
He was in second place overall coming out of the lake, seven seconds behind Wright, but really opened it up on the single track natural trail that made careening downhill at high speeds a precarious proposition.
That didn’t concern Plic.
“The bike was always under control and it’s like I said, I really like mountain biking,” he said. “I was like I was at home.”
Wright, from Maryland, was three minutes ahead of Great Britain’s Iwan Froley and four ahead of Pietro Bellemo of Italy.
After racing for two years in Italy for the past two XTERRA World Championships in the Youth B and Junior divisions, Wright was happy to be racing on U.S. soil in Ruidoso, even if he did come in second overall.
“I had two years of really rough World Championships in Italy. To come here on home soil and win, it’s incredible,” Wright said. “Ondrej is a phenomenal athlete, and I don’t think I would have beat him on my best day. So hats off to him.”
Wright was very happy with the bike paths, but found the running leg to be very challenging.
“I’ve done two types of courses with XTERRA. One is true mountain biking, and one is a 20-minute gravel uphill road,” said Wright, who won the XTERRA North American triathlon title in May to qualify for Ruidoso. “I was really happy when I got here and it was actual mountain biking trails.”
“I really loved this course, but that run is brutal,” he added. “It was interesting.”
The fastest junior woman on the day was Mila Lantelme of France, coming on with a time of 1:27:39, 11 minutes ahead of U.S.’s Abigail Wails. Lantelme was 12 th overall.
Lantelme is on the same triathlon club as Alizee Paties, who won the women’s elite race the day before, ahead of teammate Marta Menditto. Lantelme felt the pressure to win after seeing her two older teammates do so well.
“With Alizee and Marta finishing first and second, I just wanted to do as well as them,” she said.
Her strength was also on the bike course, but the running portion almost kept her from the top spot.
“The altitude here makes it really difficult on me,” Lantelme said. “Here, you have to push the entire course. I was pretty confident I would win by the time I was running, but I saw my heart rate was really high there, so I had to take it a little easy there.”
In the Youth B girls race, Canada’s Dahlia Fillion was visibly emotional after finishing less than a second ahead of Jeane Smith from South Africa.
Fillion was in the World Championships the last two years in the Super Sprint race as a 14 and 15-year-old in Italy, but with some very disappointing finishes.
“It meant so much to me to finally run the race I wanted to,” Fillion said. “I’m proud of my finish.”
Starting their careers
The day began with the Youth A race, featuring the fastest 14 and 15-year-olds in a super sprint over a course half the size of the Youth B and Juniors. Dinis Cabral from Portugal showed he’s an up-and-coming triathlete to watch with a time of 37:18 to win the boys division by a large margin over U.S. competitor Caleb Wales.
“I was feeling exhausted after the swim and wondered if I’d gone too fast in the beginning,” Cabral said. “But then on the bike, it was really fun and I was motivated to win.”
Nina Tjallingii was the fastest girl in the race, representing the Netherlands as she stopped the clock at 38:57 and was three minutes ahead of Ukraine’s Yaroslava Huliy.
Being from the Netherlands, Tjallingii has had very little experience at the high altitude of Ruidoso, but came a week early to acclimate after working in an elevation tent.
“I wasn’t great in the water, but my transition to the bike was quite fast, so I was happy with that,” Tjallingii said. “My goal on the bike was to overtake everyone, so I could take it a little easier on the run. But that run was very hard.”
Todd Fuqua is Sports Editor for the Ruidoso News and can be reached at 575-937-0344.
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