Rotorua's Sam Osborne and Samantha Kingsford embrace after picking up wins at Xterra Oak Mountain. Photo / Xterra
Rotorua's Sam Osborne and Samantha Kingsford embrace after picking up wins at Xterra Oak Mountain. Photo / Xterra
Rotorua couple Sam Osborne and Samantha Kingsford have won the 15th Xterra Oak Mountain off-road triathlon elite titles.
Their winning times, at the event at Oak Mountain State Park in Shelby County, Alabama on Saturday, were 2h 29m and 2h 56m 17s, respectively.
It was the 15th Xterra World Tour win for Osborne, the sixth for Kingsford, and the second victory of 2021 for the pair following their home country victories at Xterra New Zealand in Rotorua in April.
The event, the first Xterra major in the US since the 2019 World Championship in Maui, combined a one-mile swim (1.6km) in Double Oak Lake with a 21-mile (33.8km) mountain bike and six-mile (9.7km) trail run.
In the men's elite race, Eric Lagerstrom and Andrew Starykowicz, two US road triathlon stars making their Xterra debut, made their presence felt early.
Lagerstrom was first out of the water with a blistering 18m 10s swim split, more than 40s faster than the chase pack led by Starykowicz with Osborne, Brad Weiss, Elliot Bach and Ian King right behind.
Rotorua's Sam Osborne celebrates victory at Xterra Oak Mountain. Photo / Xterra
Straight out of the transition, Osborne got a gap on the pack then started reeling in Lagerstrom, but it wasn't easy.
"It's really hard to close the gap on the tight stuff, and even once I got past Eric I couldn't break him for a long time, only on the descents, so that's really where I pushed," Osborne said.
"If you can force people into mistakes, especially on a course like this where there are so many rocks and roots, that's part of the art of off-road racing."
That's exactly what happened.
"I was having a killer day, I was able to hang with Sam until 9k or so, but I slammed my back wheel hard into a sharp rock in a river crossing and couldn't seal it with a plug," Lagerstrom, who did not finish following the mechanical failure, said.
Lagerstrom wasn't the only racer to fall prey to the elements.
Up ahead Osborne was turning himself inside-out on the big climb to pull away from the field and his mantra became "smooth is fast".
Reigning world champion Weiss did not relent, however, and gave it everything he had to pull within 30s of Osborne by the bike-to-run transition.
"I knew if I could run the first couple of k really well I'd be in a good spot, but the legs didn't feel great in the beginning," Osborne said.
"Stuck with it, though, and the legs just ticked on, and from there I was able to settle into my own rhythm, nice and smooth."
Osborne finished more than two minutes ahead of Weiss to successfully defend his Xterra Oak Mountain crown from 2019.
He said it was good to be back racing overseas for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
"Domestic racing is cool, but it always leaves you wanting more, you know, it feeds the addiction but not like this where you turn up and there are two world champs and the field is so deep. What a race."
Xterra Oak Mountain Elite Men's Results: 1st Sam Osborne, NZL, 2:29:00 2nd Bradley Weiss, RSA, 2:31:06 3rd Josiah Middaugh, USA, 2:34:11 4th Kieran McPherson, NZL, 2:34:38 5th Elliot Back, USA, 2:37:31 6th Curtiss Feltner, USA, 2:42:35 7th Brian Smith, USA, 2:42:40 8th Steve Croucher, USA, 2:44:40 9th Will Ross, USA, 2:46:20 10th Benny Smith, USA, 2:48:43 11th Ian King, USA, 2:49:12 12th Hans Ryham, USA, 2:50:31 13th Humberto Rivera, USA, 2:53:04 14th Sean Kickbush, USA, 2:54:22 15th Branden Rakita, USA, 2:54:46 16th Barret Fishner, USA, 3:07:16 17th Andrew Starykowicz, USA, 3:55:11
Samantha Kingsford on her way to a win in Alabama. Photo / Xterra
In the women's race, Kingsford led from wire-to-wire with the fastest swim, second-best bike split and the quickest run.
"I was running scared, I didn't know where anybody was, so I was pretty stoked to get this one," Kingsford said after taking the tape by more than four minutes.
"It feels a bit surreal that we're actually back here in the US. It was a hard decision to come or not, and for Sam and me both to win like this, that tops it off, and I'm glad we made the right call."
Amanda Felder put together her best Xterra performance to date to finish second. She came out of the water with Kingsford and was riding in second until Blood Rock when Snyder got past. Once on the run, she made her move.
