Josiah Middaugh and Flora Duffy captured the 7th annual XTERRA Mountain Championship off-road triathlon pro race titles on a picture perfect day at Beaver Creek Resort in the Rocky Mountains around Avon, Colorado this morning.

It’s Middaugh’s third straight win on his home course and fourth in five years. It’s also his second win in a row on the XTERRA U.S. Pro Series and puts him in prime position to capture his third straight Series title in Utah this September. Of note, Middaugh won his first-ever XTERRA major at the Mountain Championship when it was held in Keystone, Colorado in 2004. This is his 16th career XTERRA title.

The 36-year-old from Eagle-Vail, Colorado is living proof that you can’t win the race in the swim. He exited the 68-degree waters of Nottingham Lake about 2:30 back of rookie Eli Hemming and the established XTERRA core of racers Branden Rakita, Brad Zoller, Braden Currie, and Ben Hoffman.

At mile 3.5 Currie had nine seconds on Hoffman, more than a minute on Rakita and Rom Akerson, and Middaugh was 1:35 back. By T2 after several thousand feet of climbing up the mountain Middaugh had a 40-second lead on Currie and one-minute on Hoffman. Two miles into the run that lead had stretched to two minutes and he crossed the line in 2:07:26, followed by Hoffman in 2:09:10 and Currie in 2:10:50.

It’s Hoffman’s second straight runner-up here, and he was third in each of the previous two tries. With his third-place showing today Currie moves into 2nd place in the XTERRA U.S. Pro Series standings and could take the Series with a win at the USA Championship combined with a third-place or lower finish by Middaugh in Utah.

XTERRA Costa Rica Champion Rom Akerson finished in fourth and Alex Modestou placed fifth for the second straight season.
PRO MEN

Pl Name Age Hometown Time Points
1 Josiah Middaugh 36 Eagle-Vail, Colorado 2:07:26 100
2 Ben Hoffman 31 Boulder, Colorado 2:09:10 90
3 Braden Currie 29 Wanaka, New Zealand 2:10:50 82
4 Rom Akerson 30 Tambor, Costa Rica 2:15:19 75
5 Alex Modestou 28 Durham, North Carolina 2:15:32 69
6 Ryan Ignatz 36 Boulder, Colorado 2:17:04 63
7 Chris Legh 42 Lyons, Colorado (AUS) 2:19:55 58
8 Brad Zoller 37 Avon, Colorado 2:20:17 53
9 Chris Ganter 36 Boise, Idaho 2:22:36 49
10 Thomas Spannring 39 Longmont, Colorado 2:23:14 45
Also: Chris Foster (41), Eli Hemming (37), James Hadley (34), Branden Rakita (31), Ben Torvik (28)
In the women’s race the reigning XTERRA World Champion Flora Duffy’s reign of dominance continued.

A week after finishing third at the PanAm Games road triathlon in Toronto, Duffy proved she’s just as strong on a mountain bike and trails. The 27-year-old from Devonshire, Bermuda had the fastest swim, bike, and run to take the tape in 2:22:41, more than six-minutes ahead of runner-up Emma Garrard.

The victory marks her 11th XTERRA win in her last 12 tries since the start of the 2014 season.

Behind Duffy, Emma Garrard was having a great day of her own. She posted the third-best swim, got ahead of Sara McLarty early on the bike and had the second-fastest ride and run times to finish in 2:28:43, nearly six-minutes ahead of Schuler.

It’s Garrard’s fifth straight runner-up finish this year and she’s now placed 2nd at all eight regional championship races over the past two seasons. Sara Schuler ran her way into third, Jaime Brede had a career-best day to finish fourth, and last month’s XTERRA East Champion Suzie Snyder finished fifth.

In a pre-race preview piece Garrard had predicted the podium quite nicely, saying “If there’s one athlete who suits this course it is mountain goat momma Sara as she has the podiums here to prove it. If there’s local gal for this race it’s Jaime Brede who I’m sure knows the course better than the rest of us and had a breakthrough race here last year with a 5th place. Based on her 3rd place at the Go Pro Mtn Games and ample preparation at altitude she can certainly improve this year. Suzie living closer to the mountains will surely make her faster this year, plus coming off a win in Richmond. Then of course there’s Flora Duffy, who will be about a mile ahead with Sara McLarty before the rest of us even touch our bikes. Flora proved last year and early season this year she can dominate on any XTERRA course in any condition. She is back in action after injury placing 3rd in last weekend’s Pan Am games doing most of the work at the front of the bike with a race best swim and solid run to match…”

Find photos and quotes from the day on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/xterraplanet
Find complete results at http://jtltiming.com/multisport.htm

PRO WOMEN

Pl Name Age Hometown Time Points
1 Flora Duffy 27 Devonshire, Bermuda 2:22:41 100
2 Emma Garrard 33 Park City, Utah 2:28:43 90
3 Sara Schuler 34 Boulder, Colorado 2:34:36 82
4 Jaime Brede 38 Breckenridge, Colorado 2:36:56 75
5 Suzie Snyder 33 Reno, Nevada 2:38:01 69
6 Tamara Donelson 39 Edwards, Colorado 2:42:21 63
7 Maia Ignatz 34 Boulder, Colorado 2:45:47 58
8 Sara McLarty 32 Clermont, Florida 2:55:51 53
9 Debby Sullivan 33 Rocklin, California 2:56:09 49
10 Caroline Colonna 52 Taos, New Mexico 3:04:32 45
Also: Rebecca Blatt (41)