Lizzie Orchard isn’t a surprise winner anymore. Last year she finished an amazing 5th in a stacked field at the XTERRA World Championship. To start this season she won her first XTERRA major in the Philippines, and just last weekend she won the XTERRA New Zealand Championship. Today, she solidified all those results with her third win of the year to take a commanding lead in the XTERRA Asia-Pacific Tour standings.
“I can’t believe it. I’m still me, it’s just me,” smiled Orchard, an XTERRA Tribe favorite for her big smile and friendly demeanor. “I really like the hot races, and it wasn’t that hot today so I’m very pleased to have a good go today.”
From the very beginning of today’s women’s elite race it looked like the title belonged to Jacqui Slack, who lives and trains with her fiancée Benny Allen just up the road in Wollongong for much of the year.
Slack had the best swim of the day by more than one-minute, and took a minute lead on to the run. Behind her Renata Bucher (who had the fastest bike split of the day, 1:32:20), Lizzie Orchard, and Carina Wasle started chasing.
“There were three or four of us within 40 seconds or so,” said Orchard. “With the long beach section of the run we could all see each other. It was a technical run, and Carina was about 50-meters behind me the whole way.”
After passing Bucher on the sand early in the run, it took Orchard and Wasle until about the 7K mark to catch up to Slack.
“We slowly, sloooowly caught Jacqui,” said Orchard, who had the fastest run of the day (41:14) to take the tape in 2:36:42, just 27-seconds ahead of Wasle (who won at XTERRA Reunion last weekend).
Slack came in third, gutted not to have won it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to win a race so much,” said Slack. “I did everything I could do, I had the best race I could’ve had, the other girls were just stronger today. I held them off as long as I could but they just had that bit on me at the end. They’re both great runners and great athletes, and raced really well.”
Bucher held off a hard-charging Jessica Simpson on the run by just two seconds to finish in fourth, with Simpson taking home the XTERRA Australia title for the second year in a row as the top Aussie.
“I’m super proud of Lizzie,” said Bucher, who recruited her to be on her Aloha Racing Team. “She’s an amazing athlete, and a great person as well. She smiles all the time, and really has a great Aloha spirit.”
1 Elizabeth ORCHARD 2:36:42
2 Carina WASLE 2:37:09
3 Jacqui SLACK 2:37:40
4 Renata BUCHER 2:41:05
5 Jessica SIMPSON 2:41:07
6 Catherine STERLING 2:45:45
7 Sarah BACKLER 2:47:06
8 Penny HOSKEN 2:51:26
9 Holly KHAN 2:58:40