Weiss, Duffy top XTERRA Albay
Bradley Weiss of South Africa earned his second straight XTERRA World Tour victory and 2014 XTERRA World Champion Flora Duffy of Bermuda dominated the women's field at XTERRA Alba in the Philippines on a day filled with big surf and muddy conditions thanks to recent rains.
Men
Bradley Weiss posted a 3rd-best pro men’s swim split of 16:53, 34 seconds behind Australian Ben Allen, 32 seconds behind young Mexican sensation Mauricio Mendez and 25 seconds behind leading woman pro Flora Duffy.
Weiss quickly went to work on the bike leg, carving out a 2 minutes 15 seconds lead with a race-best 1:27:28 split that blew by Ben Allen (1:30:14) and Mendez (1:30:17). The next closest chaser, Brodie Gardner of Australia, was 9 and a half minutes arrears.
Mendez was the only one fleet afoot enough to take a bite out of Weiss’s lead, but it wasn’t quite enough. Mendez’s race-fastest 40:01 split took back 1:41 from Weiss, but Weiss crossed the line in 2:28:00 with a 58 seconds margin of victory on Mendez and 5:35 on 3rd-place finisher Ben Allen.
Weiss's win comes two weeks after his XTERRA breakthrough victory at Buffelspoort, South Africa.
Women
The women’s race was essentially over when Flora Duffy emerged from the swim in 16:28 with a 1:57 lead on Jacqui Slack of Great Britain, 3:23 on Mieko Carey of Guam, 3:50 on Dimity-Lee Duke of Australia, and 4:38 on Renata Bucher of Switzerland. Duffy erased any doubts with a 1:40:07 mountain bike split that was 5:28 better than Slack, 8:57 better than Carey, 10:05 better than Bucher and 11:12 better than Duke.
Duffy wrapped it up with a women's best 44:57 trail run split that was 3:55 better than Duke, 5:50 better than Slack and a whopping 14:16 better than oft-decorated XTERRA veteran Bucher, who was still recovering from a bad ankle sprain.
Duffy crossed the finish line in 2:43:40 with a 13:11 margin over Slack and 19:38 over 3rd-place finisher Duke, who enjoyed her first ever XTERRA World Tour podium.
Duffy's win was her 8th in 9 races going back to last year. This time around she was 5th overall including the men, bringing to mind Lesley Paterson's 4th overall at this race a few years ago.
XTERRA Albay
Albay, Philippines
February 8, 2015
Results
Pro Men
1. Bradley Weiss (RSA) 2:28:00
2. Mauricio Mendez (MEX) 2:28:58
3. Ben Allen (AUS) 2:33:51
4. Brodie Gardner (AUS) 2:40:35
5. Charlie Epperson (Guam) 2:51:20
Pro Women
1. Flora Duffy (BER) 2:43:40
2. Jacqui Slack (GBR) 2:56:51
3. Dimity-Lee Duke (AUS) 2:03:18
4. Mieko Carey (Guam) 3:06:39
5. Renata Bucher (SUI) 3:12:53
