It was a battle of the World Champions in Rotorua today as Triathlete, Terenzo Bozzone, took on Adventure Racer, Richard Ussher at the 7th annual XTERRA Triathlon Festival.

It was the 32-year-old Ussher who took line honors over his younger competition but he didn’t have it his own way.

24-year-old, Bozzone lead after the 1km swim but was followed closely by Tim Wilding, Scott Thorne and Richard Ussher into transition.

The trio of chasers soon passed Bozzone on the bike and came into the bike to run together over 4 minutes ahead of Bozzone.

Once onto the 11km run – it was Thorne and Ussher who dominated the field heading through half way together and with a large gap over the rest of the field.

Ussher pushed hard on the second lap of the run and crossed the line 20 seconds ahead of up and comer – Thorne.

“I got a little break on Scott around the back of the lake – I think it was enough to give me a little lift and maybe Scott a little downer. It was nice to be able to look back and see a bit of a gap for the final couple of kilometers.” Ussher explained.

While it was Ussher’s first ever XTERRA Triathlon – it will not he his last.

“I really loved the race, I have been really well looked after and I’ve had a great time – perhaps this is where my future is!” he said with a smile at the finish line.

The past 5 years have seen the women’s race dominated by two athletes; Sonia Foote and Gina Ferguson. With neither of them back in 2009, it was the battle of the mountain bikers with NZ Marathon MTB Champion, Anika Smail up against top NZ Mountain Biker – Nicola Leary.

After third place last year, Leary was first across the line this year, over a minute ahead of second place-getter, Susie Wood.

Smail was happy with her third place after having some work to do after the swim.

“I think I was second to past pro women out of the swim! And still about third to last off the bike – so I was really pleased to run my way into third!” Smail said.

Richard Ussher’s wife, Elina, took out the 21km run title in a time of 1:32:08 – some 9 minutes ahead of second place.

XTERRA New Zealand annually hosts more than 2,000 athletes in what is considered the world's largest single day XTERRA off-road triathlon festival with competitors choosing from walking, running, mountain biking as well as the individual and team XTERRA events.


Results: XTERRA Festival: Blue Lake, Rotorua

Triathlon
Men’s SWIM BIKE RUN TOTAL
1. Richard Ussher Nelson 14:05 1:07:17 42:11 2:03:33
2. Scott Thorne Hamilton 14:20 1:06:49 42:55 2:04:04
3. Mark Leishman Rotorua 14:52 1:07:49 46:06 2:08:30
4. Tim Wilding Taupo 14:04 1:07:19 48:09 2:09:30
5. Terenzo Bozzone AKL 12:28 1:13:11 44:06 2:09:45

Women’s SWIM BIKE RUN TOTAL
1. Nicola Leary Rotorua 16:43 1:16:34 52:50 2:26:07
2. Susie Wood Nelson 16:30 1:18:51 53:04 2:28:25
3. Anika Smail Rotorua 20:57 1:17:02 50:50 2:28:49
4. Monique Avery Rotorua 15:39 1:18:34 56:14 2:30:27
5. Nina Pederson Rotorua 16:34 1:20:05 56:23 2:33:02


21km Run
Men’s Time
1. Michael Adams Auckland 1:16:57
2. Tony Edwards Auckland 1:23:42
3. Warwick Creasy Auckland 1:27:35

Women’s
1. Elina Ussher Nelson 1:32:08
2. Selena Robb Auckland 1:41:22
3. Leanne Berkahn Auckland 1:42:43


11km Run
Men’s
1. Mark Weich Auckland 47:38
2. Mathew Matuschka Hairini 50:27
3. Campbell Clayton-Greene - 51:28

Women’s
1. Meshy Holt Cambridge 54:35
2. Rebecca Innes-Jones Auckland 56:24
3. Chantelle Richmond Auckland 57:28


26km Mountain Bike;
Men’s
1. Peter Calnan - 1:09:55
2. Josh Page - 1:10:30
3. Carl Johnstone - 1:11:35

Women’s
1. Marie Skello - 1:31:17
2. Cameron Coombes - 1:32:13
3. Fiona Neary - 1:33:17

Full results: http://resources.eventdirector.net/XTNZ ... geID=17852

Good work on a fine 4th place, Tim! You looked great on telly blasting around on the Tranny!

I don't care how immature it is, 'tranny' still gets a snigger

I'd like to say a big ups to my little bro tim who was 5th in his age group and is getting better every year. I'm well proud of him.

Wicked effort by Scott Thorne - right up there beating some of the best and very close to the one left in front. Would be awesome to see what he could do given sponsorship and the opportunity to turn pro fulltime. He is a machine and has amazing mtb skills. Well done Scotty.

Super stoked with my race yesterday - on no actual "training" I managed 12th fastest team rider (of 138 teams, 8th fastest in mixed) and our team placing 8th in mixed. Which is made even betterer by the fact that our runner pulled out a week ago suffering with shin splints - so our swimmer manned up (chicked up actually) and did both the run and the swim!

Such a wicked course - I'd only ridded Frontal Labotomy, Billy T and G Rock before - so it was largely unknown to me. For once the "just pin it and see what happens" approach worked!

Only dampener on the day was returning to my car to find that some cunzor had helped themselves to my Q-Spear bike rack Of all the places I've left it on the back of the car, I never expected it to go walk about at an event...

srsly bowl, it's Rotorua....

But anyway, congrats on your result

A huge result for Nic in the Women's race too - awesome effort

Monolith wrote:srsly bowl, it's Rotorua....

Yeah I know, should've taken it off but really can't be arsed and hate having to feel like I should. And just really unlucky that it was mine that was chosen of the hundreds of other unlocked racks still on cars in the car park.
Was a bunch of beer bottles on the ground behind the car - so I guess they were just parked up there waiting for an oppurtune moment.

Count_Stylie wrote: who knew that the Usher bloke was so quick on a MTB too?

another fast Jamis

ryda wrote:

Count_Stylie wrote: who knew that the Usher bloke was so quick on a MTB too?

another fast Jamis

He's just fast at everything.

Crazyman paddle last year he was beating the K1 paddlers down here (who are national level).

The guy's a machine! and really nice to boot..

I never realised he'd represented NZ as a freestyle skier at the Nagano Olympics either!
Is there anything the guy can't do

Conners wrote:I never realised he'd represented NZ as a freestyle skier at the Nagano Olympics either!
Is there anything the guy can't do

Get decent levels of sponsorship!

He tried to set up a NZ Adventure Racing team a year or so back - would have been near if not the top team in the world. Couldn't get funding...

Yeah - read an interview with him the other day where he said his biggest payday last year was only $10k US as well...