WORLDS QUALIFIED AFTER XTERRA UK WIN

Published by

finlay_goodman

on

15th May 2025

3–4 minutes

XTERRA Weston Park, was stop 3 on the XTERRA World Cup circuit, for the elites for the first time, and my first time racing XTERRA UK at Weston Park in Staffordshire.

With the aim of heading up the night before, ready for my mid-morning start, unfortunately we didn’t end up leaving til just before 7pm, on which we decided to head back and leave early on race day.

After a 4 o’clock wake up we headed up by 5 and was there with just under 2hrs to prep.

With a large estate, lake and rolling grasslands, it proved a very fast course, for an hour and a quarter of cross triathlon racing on the first Saturday this month.

I was looking to book my slot back to XTERRA Youth World Champs in Italy, for what will be its final year there, and my second time after becoming the first ever XTERRA Youth World Champion at its first edition, last year.

With the sprint distance – 750m swim, 16k MTB and 5k trail run, I set of with all the other age groups, but placed myself well on the startline to be out quickly off the gun, and first to the first buoy. I held the lead for a couple hundred metres, and was joined by an older Junior, as we broke away from the rest. Seeing it as better to save a bit of energy as he drafted off me, I let up off the pace for a few strokes to draft off him for a couple hundred and then counter it with about 100/150m to go, and exit with a 5s lead, 1st in my category and overall, completing the swim, which was about 790m in 9mins 11s.

Through T1 which was right next to the lake, I came out at the same time pretty much as the lead, and caught up to him on the bike straight out and we started the climb together. I wasn’t able to take the bike as quickly and intense as I would’ve liked as I didn’t have time to practice a bike lap like the others the day before, since I couldn’t get up in time. I didn’t want to get lost as the lap was 8k and was only signposted instead of course tape, so that meant another Youth B (my category) caught up to us just 3/4 of the way through lap 1.

I put an attack up the hill onto lap 2 (of 2), which was closed when we hit the headwind on the climb, about a couple minutes later.

Had I known the bike course I would’ve done things differently on the bike, but I made it work and managed ok.

We stayed as a group then I attacked up the hill into T2, which was about a kilometre away from where T1 was, gaining me about 5s and a gap into transition. I exited transition to start the run with about the same advantage, striding out and extending my lead. Unfortunately I stacked it jumping a ditch, on the course, faceplanting the other side, but was up quickly and back going again.

Again, not being able to practice the run course wasn’t ideal, and it was just one 5k loop, and at about a mile in I wasn’t sure where to go as the signs were turned the wrong way, but I went with what I could remember on the course map I had looked at. I went right instead of straight on, after going straight about 50m and stopping to check. I carried on, losing about at least 20s of my lead, but still had a good gap.

I ran strongly for the rest of the race, opening my gap up to a minute overall and in my category, over the line and split a 17min 5k exactly, which wasn’t too bad considering that included the time I stopped for and the amount of twisty singletrack.

I qualified for the World Champs, after winning my category (Youth B) and overall in the sprint race, so I’m looking forward to going back to Trentino in Italy, this September, for the chance to retain my title.