Jorik van Egdom and Kate Bram­ley win XTERRA Nether­lands

The men’s race start­ed as usu­al: Jens Roth (DEU) led after the 1.5km swim and there was a good chance that the Ger­man would con­tin­ue his run, which had been going on since the XTERRA Ger­many, and pos­si­bly crown it with a vic­to­ry. But that was unfor­tu­nate­ly not grant­ed to him. First the Dutch­man Jorik­Van Egdom (NED) caught up with the leader on the 36km MTB track and took the lead after 7km. Mar­ti­jn Dekker (NED), Fran­cois Car­loni (FRA) and Yer­ay Lux­em (BEL) also caught up with Roth. After 25km Car­loni took the lead. How­ev­er, the top team chose a less favourable line in too soft sand on the 7km long beach sec­tion and so the group around the Bel­gians Geert Lau­ryssen and Kris Cod­dens as well as the Ger­man Roth could close the gap to the lead­ing duo again.  Short­ly before T2 Lau­ryssen took the lead ahead of Car­loni and Van Egdom. Lux­em retired due to a tech­ni­cal defect. At the end of the first lap, Van Egdom over­took Geert Lau­ryssen, who had been lead­ing until then, on the very undu­lat­ing and part­ly sandy Trail­run track. This order didn’t change for the rest of the race on the podi­um. Place 6 for the Ger­man Jens Roth.

The Aus­tralian Bramley(AUS) and the British Nicole Wal­ters came out of the water togeth­er. Nicole Wal­ter then took the lead with the MTB. In chas­ing posi­tion: the Dutch Lin­da Van Vli­et, who could use her expe­ri­ence on the sand speed course. On the run split the Dutch could even inter­cept Nicole Wal­ters and took 2nd place.

The sen­sa­tion of the women’s race, how­ev­er, was the Ger­man Pauline Sasserath, who as Age­grouperin drove the elite with the MTB into the ground and even led in T2.

The XTERRA Nether­lands was the last race of the XTERRA Euro­pean Tour. But the win­ners had already been decid­ed before. Hele­na Karasko­va (CZE) and Arthur Ser­ri­eres (FRA). Both, how­ev­er, were not at the start on Ame­land.