{"id":194944,"date":"2015-03-27T04:00:36","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T18:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=194944"},"modified":"2015-03-27T04:00:36","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T18:00:36","slug":"pros-all-set-for-xterra-saipan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/pros-all-set-for-xterra-saipan\/","title":{"rendered":"Pros all set for XTERRA Saipan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professional triathletes are bracing for a bigger and tougher field than Tagaman as they compete in tomorrow\u2019s XTERRA Saipan Championship.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
From left, visiting pros Daz Parker and Jacqui Slack of Great Britain, Australian Ben Allen, Austrians Karina Wasle and Markus Benech, Renata Bucher of Switzerland, and Belinda Hadden of Australia enjoy a light moment after the press conference for this Saturday\u2019s XTERRA Saipan on Thursday at the Pacific Islands Club.
(Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI am excited to defend my title, but it will not be easy as I know everybody trained hard for this. We\u2019re all equal and that will make the competition tougher,\u201d said defending champion Carina Wasle of Austria during yesterday\u2019s press conference at the Seaside Grill of Pacific Islands Club.<\/p>\n

Wasle will be putting her women\u2019s division tiara on the line against seven-time XTERRA Saipan champion Renata Bucher of Switzerland, 2013 winner Jacqui Slack of the United Kingdom, crowd favorite and newly crowned Tagaman champion Mieko Carey, returnee Daz Parker of the United Kingdom, and Ironman veteran Belinda Hadden of Australia.<\/p>\n

The defending champion is hoping that the rest she got after withdrawing from last Sunday\u2019s Tagaman will give her the advantage over Carey, Bucher, Parker, and Hadden, who were all put to the test during the scorching road race last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am coming to this Saturday\u2019s race with fresh legs so I think I am lucky that I was not able to continue racing in Tagaman due to a flat tire,\u201d Wasle added.<\/p>\n

Slack will enter tomorrow\u2019s event with lots of gas on her tank too as she missed the Tagaman and only did a 100-kilometer bike race in Australia last week. The British bet is also competing in this year\u2019s XTERRA Saipan injury-free. Last year, Slack finished only third behind Wasle and Bucher as she competed in the off-road race with a fractured collar bone on her right shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, I am in perfect shape and excited to go out there and beat the challenging XTERRA course,\u201d Slack said.<\/p>\n

Bucher and Parker, who placed second and third to Carey in last weekend\u2019s Tagaman, said that although their recovery time for XTERRA is short, they believe they still have the energy to conquer the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we have a short recovery time, it is still easy to recover from Tagaman and make the switch to the much tougher XTERRA race. In Tagaman, your heart rate is not that high unlike in XTERRA where you go up and down the course and your heart is beating so fast because of the movement and pace,\u201d Parker said.<\/p>\n

Recovery is a factor, but so does the race condition, according to Bucher.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on the same boat going into last Saturday\u2019s race, but things could change depending on the weather on race day. This Saturday, I just have to focus, pace myself, and lessen my mistakes as I go along the course,\u201d Bucher said.<\/p>\n

For her part, Hadden said that although she had less time to recover for XTERRA because she raced in Tagaman, she is glad she came to the island early to familiarize herself with the tricky XTERRA course.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my first time to do XTERRA Saipan and I know I am up for a very challenging course. The different movements one will do in the bike and run leg make this race harder than Tagaman,\u201d Hadden said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, three-time champion Ben Allen considers his participation in Tagaman as an advantage going into this weekend\u2019s XTERRA Saipan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what it\u2019s like out there with the heat and humidity and my body can easily adjust to the condition after doing last weekend\u2019s Tagaman. Also, it is much easier to do XTERRA because it is half of Tagaman\u2019s course,\u201d said Allen.<\/p>\n

Allen, who beat Russia\u2019s Alexander Dorovskikh, France\u2019s Olivier Marceau, and New Caledonia\u2019s David Esposito, will be defending his crown against a bigger field. Besides his three foes in Tagaman, Allen will also face XTERRA returnee and last year\u2019s third placer Bradley Weiss of South Africa, XTERRA veteran Takahiro Ogasawara of Japan, fellow returnees Kaon Cho of South Korea and Austria\u2019s Markus Benesch, and first-timer Joe Miller of the Philippines.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be an interesting race,\u201d said Allen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am looking forward to my second XTERRA Saipan. I just wish I had more time to get used to the weather, but still I am hoping having missed Tagaman will work to my advantage as I do XTERRA this weekend,\u201d said Benesch, who joined Allen and the five other female pros in yesterday\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n

Also in attendance at yesterday\u2019s event were Marianas Visitors Authority deputy managing director Judy Torres, PIC\u2019s Glenn Policare, and Docomo Pacific general manager James Nelson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professional triathletes are bracing for a bigger and tougher field than Tagaman as they compete…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":194946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3294,504,159,2879],"class_list":["post-194944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-australian-ben-allen","tag-austria","tag-pacific-islands-club","tag-xterra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}