Results from Day 1 of the XTERRA Winter World Championship Weekend
Written by Trey Garman
Saturday, 08 March 2008
MARCH 7,
2008 – Justin Hurd from
Fort Collins, CO and Sara McMahan from Incline Village, NV won the
men’s and
women’s XTERRA Snowboard Dash-4-Cash race on a magnificent 50-degree
sunny day
at Snowbasin Resort.
Two-time
Winter Triathlon World Champion Nicolas Lebrun from France won the
men’s elite ski
mountaineering 12k race as a tune-up for tomorrow’s XTERRA Winter World
Championship. His traveling partner
Alexandra Borrelly, also of France, won the women’s elite race.
Both
Hurd and McMahan walked away with $500 cash for their efforts. Hurd, a professional triathlete and former
All-American runner at UC Davis, finished in 16:47 – more than two
minutes
ahead of runner-up Phil Glenn from Reno, NV.
McMahan was the top female in 21:24, just a minute better
than Christy
McBride from Ogden, UT.
“This
place is for real,” exclaimed Hurd, who use to work ski patrol at
Northstar in
Lake Tahoe, Nevada where he grew up. “The
facilities here are just amazing and the vertical is incredible…it’s a
class of
a resort.”
The
snowboard race included four downhills and four climbs where riders had
to
carry their boards nearly 1,000 combined feet uphill. Both winners
chose their
footwear wisely – with Hurd in just the liners for his boots and
McMahan in
hiking boots with yak trax.
“I’m
glad I went with the hiking boots because that was a lot of climbing,”
said
McMahan (pictured below)
Two-time
Winter Triathlon World Champion Nicolas Lebrun from France won the
men’s elite ski
mountaineering 12k race as a tune-up for tomorrow’s XTERRA Winter World
Championship. His traveling partner
Alexandra Borrelly, also of France, won the women’s elite race.
Using
climbing skins, ski mountaineering racers climbed 1,300 feet up an
interesting
winding route through the tree lines to the first of four checkpoints
where
they took off their skins and raced down to the next stop.
Subsequent climbs were roughly 500 feet, 300
feet, then 100 feet for a total of 2,200 feet of uphill.
“It
was perfect up here today, the conditions were ideal and so beautiful,”
said
Lebrun.
Erika
Sweigert of Victor, ID won the women’s junior 12k; Jared Inouye of Salt
Lake
City won the senior men’s 12k, Jarrett Moe of Park City, UT won the
Senior 8k,
Sari Anderson of Glenwood Springs, CO won the senior women’s 8k, Bruce
Engelby
of Pleasant View, UT won the Master’s 12k, Mike Kloser of Vail, CO won
the
Master’s 8k, and Vicky Johnson of Bear Valley, CA won the Masters 8k.
THE
MAIN EVENT IS TOMORROW – SATURDAY – MARCH 8 @ 10 a.m. - Snowbasin
Resort - UTAH
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