Ladina Buss and Dominik Wychera captured the championship titles at XTERRA Canmore on August 6th in Canmore, Alberta.

Ladina Buss, the Swiss pro triathlete, finished in 2:49:48 for 14th place overall. Austrian elite, Dominik Wychera, surprised himself with the win, crossing the line in 2:21:01, just over a minute ahead of runner up Jean-Philippe Thibodeau. Seventeen-year old Canadian phenom, Tate Haugan was third in 2:25:08.

“I wanted to race XTERRA Canmore as training for Penticton ITU World Cross Triathlon,” said Wychera. “It was my first XTERRA podium, and it became a win.”

Haugan finished the 1500 meter swim first, followed by Thibodeau, Aidan Nugent, and Wychera.

“I knew that it will be a fight between the four of us,” said Wychera, “So I went out of T1 on my bike and gave it all out. I was two and a half minutes back and I wanted to catch up to the guys in front as fast as possible. I overtook Aidan in the beginning of the first lap but didn’t catch Jean-Philippe until the second. I managed to get a gap between him and me and came into T2 in second place  The run was tricky – again two laps – and I closed the gap on the first 2k and kept running fast for safety. Jean-Philippe managed to overtake Tate too, but the gap to me was too big. Aidan had a solid run, but was too far back off the bike to reach the podium.”

Wychera had the fastest bike split of the day by about two minutes and also had the quickest run time. “Young Gun” Tate Haugan was like an underwater missile, coming out of the water three seconds ahead of Thibodeau, who is known for his skill in the water. 

In the women’s division, the Swiss pro, Ladina Buss broke the tape in 2:48:48, about eight minutes ahead of runner up, Penny Slater, who finished in 2:57:13. Susanne McArthur was third in 3:02:23.

Slater and McArthur had identical swim splits with Buss coming out of the water almost two minutes back. Buss went on to crush it on the 26k bike course, completing the two-laps in 1:32:15, about six minutes faster than Slater and 13 minutes quicker than McArthur.

McArthur ran strong, finishing the 10k in 52:48, less than a minute slower than Buss’ split. Slater ran 55:23, which was good enough for second place.

“The guys from Grizzly Mountain Events did a great job,” said Wychera, “And I think especially the bike course is one of the best from the world tour- so much fun.”

And to the best of our knowledge, no one needed to bust out the bear spray.

View the complete results at www.blitzevents.ca.

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