
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR
24. December 2019
XTERRA Adventures part 12 – World Championship Maui
9. January 2020We all look forward to the upcoming season. Also in 2020 the XTERRA European Tour will offer a mix of already established events as well as brand-new ones – spanning the whole continent.
As usual the season kickes off in April with races in south-eastern Europe. XTERRA Malta starts the 2020 racing on April 4th, followed by the new race in Croatia two weeks later and another Mediteranian race in Greece another week later.
In May the XTERRA family moves to the south-west of Europe to Portugal (10th May). Two weeks later the first of two Italian races is on the menu at Lake Garda.
In June the Tour has stops at XTERRA Belgium (Namur on the 13th) and Switzerland (Vallée de Joux on the 27th).
July brings one of the classic cross-triathlon races, XTERRA France (Xonrupt on the 5th) followed by XTERRA Czech (Prachatice on the 12th) and XTERRA Italy (Lake Scanno on the 19th). The races in Xonrupt and Scanno are two of the four gold races in the year’s XTERRA European Tour (the other two being Croatia and Germany).
One month later XTERRA Luxembourg is on the list – one of the new races of 2019. Just six days later this year’s XTERRA European Championship takes stage at XTERRA Germany in Zittau, one of the most prestigious races on the calendar. As in 2019 the Tour ends on the island of Ameland at XTERRA Netherlands. This means that there is again a broad spectrum of 13 races across all of Europe.
As usual in the XTERRA world the distances are tailored around the so-called „Olympic Distance“ with the mountain bike segments being usually a bit shorter due to the harder courses and slower speeds. In the end races make up between about 2,5 hours (for the elite) and 4,5 hours (for slower amateurs) with race distances being 1,5k swim followed by about 30 to 40k bike and a 10k run.
At the gold races in Croatia (Mali Losinj), France (Xonrupt), Italy (Scanno) and Germany (Zittau) there is twice the price money for the elites as well as twice the qualification slots for the amateurs on offer.
If you never tried an XTERRA race hop on the mountain bike, put on those trailrunnign shoes and head out to train in the wild outdoors. See you at the races!
A guest contribution by Jörg Schneider (www.js-triathlon-coaching.de) (experienced triathlete and coach)