It were France’s Alizee Paties and Greek’s Panagiotis Bitados who got to break the tape at today’s Xterra Greece. Paties shared the podium with the successful short-distance triathlete – who finished fourth at the Oympics 2020 – Rachel Klamer (+2:21) and Czech’s Jindriska Zemanova (+3:43). In the men’s race, it were France’s Maxim Chane (+1:47) and Italy’s Michele Bonacina (+4:28) who finished in second and third place respectively. Just like Klamer, her husband Richard Murray decided to get out of his comfort zone by racing a cross triathlon too. He ended up finishing in fourth.
It was Klamer who was first to complete the swim. With a time of 20:27 behind her name, she started the bike part in the lead. Paties was more than three minutes behind her at this point, but on the mountain bike she soon caught up with the fast swimmers. Klamer, on the other hand, struggled with the technical bike course and lost some time during the second discipline. While she was unable to get back to Paties on the run, Klamer was a big mover on the run, which saw her get back to second place. Paties ended up crossing the line in first place, with Klamer more than two minutes behind her and Zemanova in third place.
Unlike in the women’s race, there was no clear fastest swimmer in the men’s race. Instead, a group of approximately six athletes stayed close to each other; among them, all podium finishers and Murray. That initially saw a little group take shape during the bike part, but with Bitados pushing some high watts – clocking 1:21:35 hours on the bike – he ended up creating a little head start for the run. Murray needed three minutes longer to finish the bike part, but he managed to make up for that a bit during the run. Bitados ended up securing his victory, Chane and Bonacina settled for silver and bronze, while Murray crossed the line in fourth place.
* Due to an error in the timing app, there were no run times available. These results are based on the total times that are currently communicated.
