The Full Distance Triathlon begins with a swim in the crystal-clear waters of Lake Molveno, followed by a demanding ride through purpose-built trails connecting Molveno and Andalo. The run course winds along the shoreline and through forested paths before finishing in front of one of Italy’s most breathtaking alpine lakes—where the next class of XTERRA World Champions will be crowned.
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Wow. Heat. 29 years ago on the island of Maui in Hawaii, a small group of roadgoing triathletes gathered to start something they called roughly at the time Aquatera. an off-road triathlon that would test them to a world championship win. Little did they know though just how far this sport would become. It quickly became extter and here we are 29 years later and my goodness me how much the sport has grown and changed. We’re in the Italian Doommites. This is Mulano TanTino set in the incredible surroundings, the mountains that rear up around Lago de Mulano. And we’re here for the fourth and final time in this world championship cycle before we go back to USA next year. The trails, the forest, and the mighty lake of Ruidoso in New Mexico. Let’s park that for now, though, because this is one more opportunity to enjoy the incredible Italian Doommites. the Paganella bike park, the the lake, the crystal clear blue fresh waters of Lake Mulvano, and the trails that will test these athletes towards their world championship. These are the highlights from last year. Started in clear, bright conditions as well, but it had been raining during the course of the week. The trails were tacky, but riding very, very fast indeed. The trails here in Mulano, tough, technical, rooty, tacky, and today an awful lot muddier than what you’re seeing from last year’s pictures where the course really had drained and dried out rapidly. The fast descent down through the roads in Mulano through the town itself to give it that urban feel before the final run. The trail run that’s exactly the same this year. Anticlockwise the 10 km going up and over a mighty waterfall dropping down through the tough technical trails in the woods as well. Back along the edge of Lago Imulo along the edge of the the beach itself to finish. And you’re picking up pictures here of both some of the elite athletes and the age groupers who’ll be racing again this afternoon as well. It was Arthur Serie who took three world championship wins in a row as did Solen Bilwan. The French still continue this domination of Extera with those three both going for a fourth win in a row today. It’s worth pointing out by the way that if Solain Bilwin does that, she will join Flora Duffy as the greatest Extera woman of all time. And Arthur Serier, if he wins four today, the Frenchman, he will become arguably the greatest Extera athlete of all time because no one has ever won four in a row. Conrad STS has won four. He’s here on the ground actually today, the caveman, but no one’s ever won four in a row. These are our big favorites. Sullivan Midar who spoiler alert won the short track race midweek. The American is in great form. Arthur Fericier at the far end there has had incredible consistency throughout the year but has lacked the win. And Felix Fericier second at the last two editions of this race. Can he turn it to gold? Solen Bilbon looking so good midweek in the short track race that was won by Landu Voisan. Aneta Grab Müller has come to the race ill. So, she’s under the weather and will look to swim well, but we’ll see how she goes throughout the rest. And then we have Marta Mandito, of course, the Italian who has won the World Cup this week. She’s found her consistency. And at the very end, the Chilean Barbara Riveros, four-time Olympian on the road, of course. How will she go today? Let’s hear from some of the athletes. Starting with those world champions. I rate here three times and I won three times. And of course, I don’t want to give this title away. Um, but it’s not like bad pressure I put on myself. I just want to go hard and and yeah, just be very very focused in the race and hopefully um hopefully I can um I can have an extra title with me. But um I don’t know. I guess I try to not think too much about the finish line because, you know, it will be too easy to think, oh, I did it three times. Of course, I did it three times. I can do it probably another time. But thinking also about the race because it’s going to be hard, you know, like the race is going to be hard. I’m going to have to fight. I’m It’s going to burn and hurt. And I like to think about um the process and the race and not just about the finish line because the finish line is is easy. You know, you you share with the public, you you enjoy the moment, but the race itself is hard. So, I need to stay focused on that. if if I want to have a good race. I think at first we expecting to have a full swim because the weather forecast is not super nice. So we had like like a half swim last year. So we’re just expecting to have a full swim. I mean the top contender will be not exit like in a front because there will have just some pure swimmer or really really good swimmer. But uh really fast on a race. I hope to see like the contender like Felix me or Yens or maybe Mikan and things and people just being in the front on the bike and after that it’s like a really muddy part up there. So it will obviously created some big gap. So at the beginning of the second loop, we will have a little bit more like we will know a little bit more where everyone is and what’s going on up there. And on a run, I don’t know. Everything could happen. I run super I run super fast like the last three years here and there are plenty opportunity to take some times. They are flat parts. They are like uphill, they are downhill, they are crazy technical sections. So they are for everyone they are like um something to to to just do on on a run. Well there are our two defending champions so Bilwan and Arthur Series the two French athletes and as I say really the recent history of this sport has been dominated by the French. This year though, we’ve had an Italian World Cup winner in Marta Mandito and a French World Cup winner again in Felix Forier. Can Felix Forier turn those two silvers though into gold here today? We will see. Welcome to our live broadcast by the way. My name is Jez Cox. I’ve been blessed to be the voice of Extera the last couple of years and I’ve really enjoyed bringing you coverage of all those World Cup races. I love this sport. I hope it comes across in my commentary. It’s a delight to be here on the ground and this year I’m being joined by Oliver T from Czecha as well. You’ll hear from Ollie in just a moment. Let’s have a look at this course though. It is a Wshaped twolap course with an Australian exit. Thank you Aussies for that one. Uh diving in and off that pontoon there as well. So, two of those uh 750 meter laps giving them 1500. This is when things get interesting though. They do a little flat loop around the edge of Lago de Bior, which is the inlet at the very edge of the lake before they take on a very long climb up the valley there in the direction of Andalo. When they’ve done that, they cross the road. And it’s in that bit you’re looking at right now where it’s really technical, rooty, wet, muddy, off camber, all sorts of slippy sections in there, and they do two laps of that bike course. Here’s the run. I’ve run it a few times myself this week already, so I know it inside out. It’s tough in that bit there where they go up and over the waterfall. uh very narrow, technical and tricky, and very technical and tricky through the bit you’re looking at right now in those woods there. Once they’re out of that, it’s a much smoother, faster run along the edge of the beach to finish. Twol lap swim, twolap bike, twolap run. Even me with my mathematical numptification can work that out. The good thing is though, the guy sat to my left, I’m just rubbing his thigh as I speak, is a is a mathematical genius. Some would call him an uber geek. That’s what he is. His name is Oliver Tonda. Ollie, good to be back with you again, mate. Good to be here with you, Jess. I’ve never been described as a genius. Well, I I set you up in order to bring you down. That’s the whole point, right? Let’s have a look at this start list, shall we? We’re looking at our elite men because they’re going to be starting first. I’ll make that clear to people. There’s only around about 5 minutes between the elite men’s start and the elite women’s start as well. Um Oliver, I mentioned that we had the short track race um this week. I’m just thinking about what we learned in the short track race that might be applicable here. Spoiler alert for those of you who haven’t seen it. If you want to see the short track world cup finale, it is on our YouTube channel where you’re watching this. Go back and have a look at it later on if you want because it was a cracking race. As always, I’ll give you the headlines. Sullivan Midar, the uh the 20-year-old American taking the win for the United States ahead of Yenzil Milson and Arthur Serie on that podium. And then Landu Voisan coming to this race in incredible form. from the Swiss athlete. She looked brilliant uh finishing ahead of Solen Bilwan which I think is a very interesting result ahead of today and Isa Hedley the British athlete just fading a little bit on the run but taking third in the end ahead of Barbara Riveros. What can we learn from this week’s short track racing Ollie that feeds into today? There’s a few things but not too many. I’d say the main the main piece of information is that the field is on point. Everybody is informed. There’s nobody who is missing, who’s off the pace, maybe a little bit less than we expected it. Maybe I’d say Alan Ciffort didn’t perform to maybe our expectations. Uh somebody like Isa Hedley overperformed a little tiny bit. Getting third place in this competition is just incredible. On the men’s side, again, kind of what we expected. Sullivan Midaw is a short track specialist. This course was always going to suit him. We kind of expect him to maybe not do as well on the long course, but Yens, Artur, Felix, all of them looked kind of like they were saving a tiny little bit for the long race. So, I think today is going to be big the big question. Well, there’s uh talking of questions, there’s been an awful lot of talk over the last 24 hours about the weather, dare I say it. We are up in the mountains here. We’re about 600 meters of elevation. and they climb up to about 1,600 m of elevation as they ride up towards Andalo on the mountain bike course. The athletes themselves talking a lot about things. There was even uh word of the greatest sport of all time mentioned last night. Duathlon, for those of you who know me, you know what I’m talking about. There was talk, wasn’t there, among some of the athletes? Oh my goodness. Last year’s swim had to be harveed to tell tell viewers all around the world here that we’re going to have a full distance 1500 meter swim here as well. That would be good news to some of the athletes and less good news to some of the others. Some of them of course maybe Arthur Serb not that he needs it might have been thinking ooh a juathon that would go rather nicely. Yen sloth Nelson would have loved it of course but it’s not going to happen. Who do you think this full distance swim will suit in terms of the best swimmers in men’s elite race first? Yeah let’s uh I think in the men’s distance we’ll maybe see somebody like Michaela Bonachina lead out of the race lead out of the swim. Spinata led it on the short track. That was a bit surprising. We have an uber swimmer on in the starting field. Somebody who has led these swims previously, but I actually talked to him yesterday and he said one of his new Extera strategies is not going too deep on the swim and trying to save himself a little bit for the bike, which he’s been racing on the mountain bike this year a lot. He did Cape Epic, those sorts of races. So, he’s somebody to watch out for. I think that’s interesting actually because he appears to be borrowing that tactic from Mikuel Bonachina who said exactly that earlier in the season. He’s known as El Squallo the shark. He’s been the best male swimmer really over the last year or year or so in in uh in Xter era, but he also has adopted that model that Yenszeroth has borrowed as well of holding back a bit in the swim and becoming a better allround athlete and it seems to have actually helped for Bonina himself who’s had a really consistent World Cup season. If any of you are watching these World Championships by the way thinking what’s he talking about World Cup? I don’t I don’t get to follow that. you can follow it and the best way to follow it is here on our YouTube channel. Uh we’ve done three live broadcasts during the course of the year on the World Cup, but we’ve also included a fantastic Beyond the Finish Line film. There’s five of them now that track you through this year’s World Cup. I’ve been lucky enough to voice them myself and they also track some of the stories beyond the finish line. As the name says, uh following some of our best athletes and those on their journeys around it. Excuse me. It is a really good watch. I would say that, but I mean it. It’s It’s been particularly well put together by our media team here at Extera and uh yeah, it’s a it’s a great way to catch up with everything that’s happened. It’s not your traditional highlights really either. You get real insight into the way things work in the Exttera family. Talking of the Extera family, I just want to start our broadcast by saying a big thank you to all of the volunteers including I believe that uh paddler out there. There’s people all around the Italian Doommites here spread around the edge of Mulvana who are out there often doing a thankless task. They might not all get on screen and they’re not like us. They don’t get to say their names either. So, a massive thank you to all of them. Everyone from Fitry as well, the National Federation here in Italy who are helping to put this on and assisting in making it brilliant. And for the fourth and final time, a massive thank you to the people of Mulano, the uh the Trento and the Trentino um tourism board as well who’ve supported us so brilliantly in bringing you this fourth championship here. It’s the final one in this cycle. I’m not going to say it’s the final one ever because this sport will go on way beyond the time when I’m pushing up daisies underground. Oie and I’m I’m I would not be surprised. In fact, I’m absolutely certain it will come back again to Europe in the future. Well, we see the World Cup winner Felix Forier walking out first there as well as we look at I think Sullivan Midar also. Sorry, not Sullivan Midar, Yaziah Midar, his dad at the age of 46. Now there’s a guy who makes me I’m 47. I’ll reveal that live on air. He was fifth last year. Josiah Midar, he’s a year younger than me. I mean, I’m still out running and riding a little bit, but that guy is an elite athlete. He’s quite some family, Oliver, isn’t it? Josiah is just an unbelievable athlete. The reason why he’s being called up here so early is because the starting order is actually based off of last year’s results. So, we see Archer being called up third. Maxim Cha, who maybe hasn’t done as many races in the World Cup this year, is also being called up, I believe, in fourth place. and somebody like Josiah gets fifth. Uh the starting position here is actually really important for the athletes. They want to choose the fastest line to the boys. It also means there’s going to be a bit more carnage. Me and Jess talked about this off air about maybe being a bit of an aggressive swimmer if maybe you’re not the best swimmer. Uh somebody like Yans Neiel could potentially learn from a swimmer like Jess in in that question. But yeah, we’re we’re ready for the start line and the women I believe are going to start only 3 minutes after the men. Yeah. So both races will overlap together. It’s there should be enough space between them. There is an age group race after this, but there’ll be plenty of space between the elite races and the age groupers. Dare I say it though, on their behalf, Ollie, this lot are going aren’t half going to hack up the course for the poor old age groupers who are racing this afternoon out there on the trails. And we’re off. Yeah. Um the the the conditions are really hard this morning. Uh I just went and walked through transition trying to look at all the all the mud tires. We’ll have a discussion about that a little bit later, but there’s so much standing water, so much mud, even just these little grassy sections that have been ridden a couple of times throughout the course of a week are just completely muddy. So, I I cannot imagine what happens in the in the plateau after the big uphill. That’s just going to be carnage. The water temperature, for any of you that are wondering, is 17.4°. The air temperature is 10°. There is a careful calculation which is made between those two to give us what is the the ambient all round temperature to make decisions about wet suits and what have you. I don’t think we’ll see anyone not wearing a wet suit today because it is chilly conditions. This is a mountain lake. It is directly fed by water that comes down the waterfalls and the river from the mountains. So it is cold and it’s cold in the middle of summer too. It’s cold all year round because of where the water comes from. So these are our elite women lining up and they’re lining up in order of course of where they finished in last year’s world championship. Solen Bill won the three-time champion goes out first. The rest of this slot who are unseated suddenly get in for the bunfight of elbows to get themselves in good position. Oliver, you know what’s really interesting, Jess really took her time trying to find her spot. Uh you can see her kind of standing in I’d say 10th position from the right and she didn’t seem particularly worried about trying to nab the positions all the way on the left which some of the athletes seem to be going for. Yeah indeed it’s a a Wshape swim. We shouldn’t see quite as much of a of an elbow fight I think around the boys as we did in the short track. In the short track it was like netting a swarm of uh young fish all piling on top of each other. This time round there should be a little bit more space in the full distance swim for the first time in two years now for them to actually do the full 750. Um the best swim in Extera in the world at the moment tends to be Aneta Grab Müller. Oliver, you know her well because you you work on a podcast with her too and of course she is a a fellow Czech athlete as you are. Um but she’s not well this week. Aneta Grabler is she tell us about that. Anita’s been a little bit sick. She uh came into Milan, got a got a sickness, her card got declined, been a lot of drama, couldn’t get here in time. Uh I don’t think she had the course preride that she would have liked to have. So I know she was there’s always a little bit of strategy, especially in the women’s field about who’s going to swim with who. I know Isa Hedley, Barbara Riveros, Emma Drew, and Anetta are all some of the strongest swimmers uh in the field, and they sometimes try to benefit off of each other’s strengths. I know that Aneta was looking to lead the swim coming into Meno, but now that she’s like she’s she told Isa, I’ll be happy for your feet. Meaning she’s going to try to draft, which is for for some of you who may not be familiar with uh triathlon racing, there is actually a draft benefit to swimming. There’s two different positions you can sit on a different athlete. You can either sit on their hips, which is way more beneficial in terms of drafting. And it also tends to slow down the person in front of you, which if you’re a slower swimmer is quite beneficial for you, or you can just sit on somebody’s feet. That’s a little bit easier to control because if you’re on somebody’s hip, they can just drift slightly to the left and you don’t know where they’ve gone. This sort of peripheral peripheral vision is really hard to keep in a swim. There’s so much going on. Hands being thrown all around. It’s just complete chaos. Now, this is going to test my ability to spot the men and the women and both of our ability here, Oliver, because we have all of our elite athletes in the water at the same time. I think we’re looking at our leading man right now. He’s a white swim cap, if I’m not mistaken. Now, once they’re out the first time, we will then be able to give you a really accurate detail of uh of the order in which they’re in. It’s always a tricky section this, so do bear with us. We’ll get a chance to talk through the whole race while we watch this unfold. And we’re now on our drone shot looking over the top of what appears to be, I think, our elite women, judging by how close they are together. Yeah, they’re on their way out to the boy. The first boy, that red one, you can see at the top of the shot, swimming out into the middle of the the northwestern end of Lake Mulvano, as I say, fed by those rivers and streams which come down from the high doommites and the Paganella bike park above them. It’s a stunning location. You were looking just before we started at a great crested grie sitting on the water getting ready to dive. I had the great pleasure this week of watching one of the young great crested greaves chasing a shaw of fish not unlike this lot and it was incredible the stealth with which the bird hunted the fish and and drove them into little nooks and crannies in the rocks and then literally waited for them to come out and snapped them up. Sounds a bit cruel, doesn’t it? But it’s nature. That’s how things work. It’s a bit like racing, dare I say it, Oliver, isn’t it? because this lot I I think the Extera athletes amongst all are some of the most friendly of all groups of elite elite athletes that travel and race together as well. But in a moment like this, they will not give each other an inch, will they? Exactly. The the gloves come off, you know, when we’re when we’re all at the venue together, we all share our secrets. It’s not like the road where secrets are often protected. People talk to each other. They they room with each other. They know what bike pressure they’re running. They know what shoes they’re going to use. Everybody talks to everybody. It’s a really nice and open and inviting setting. I really recommend to anybody who maybe is just thinking about giving off-road triathlon a try, Extera is the place to be. You’ll find so many nice people who are just going to, you know, uh, welcome you with open arms. But yeah, in the in the men’s field at this point, I think there’s actually a kind of a group forming here at the front. Same as at the women’s field, we saw about five or six athletes pulling off the front of the group. I wouldn’t be surprised if that, as I mentioned, was Emma Drew, Anita, Anat Grab Müller, and Barbaros maybe alongside Alan Cifford, some of the other road athletes who have come in and tend to have slightly stronger swims. Yeah, we let’s just talk about that for a moment, Oliver. Right. In the women’s race, we’ve got far more of that. In the men’s race, it really is an Extera specialist, an Exttera pros race. The interesting thing is this time round, I mean, last year we saw Richard Murray, for instance, in the men’s race. This time round really it is the hardcore exttera regulars that are featuring in that race. The women’s race though is much more interesting on that front because we do have these if you like these uh these athletes that have turned up because of the world championship. Rael Solace, Elizabeth Kuridori, Alanis Ciffort, you’ve mentioned Naomi Bodiato. These athletes could well get up in amongst possibly the medals even here today. Although it will be a real test of their skill because I think this is the hardest the MVO course has run in the four years we’ve been here and of course it’s been tweaked in that time. Um uh Nikico Leun who is our course designer a former world champion himself he goes out and finds little diversions around things just his eye is about making it even more testing and tricky and the course has got trickier year on year although it’s largely unchanged from last year. Tell us about those those four road athletes that are coming to this race uh really because of the world championship and what chance have they actually got to get amongst the medals. Somebody I’d mentioned as well as Barbaros also coming from also coming from the road and uh No Bato. She’s a she’s a young Italian athlete. She competed in Czech first of all doing the duathlon uh and then also placing really well on the long course. She’s for her age, she is able to display an incredible amount of power and I actually have her circled for a top five. I think she might overperform. But reason why these athletes who come in from the road sometimes have a harder time uh getting actual results is extera racing is very different to 70 point free racing to iron man racing to anything on the road. You have a lot of accumulated fatigue. If you exa if you for example take a 70point free race, you get on the bike and you eat. You get to set your pace. You sit at threshold. You do what you know you can do. In Extera, the course has certain demands. You have to push a certain wattage to get up these climbs. You have to be able to uh really focus on hard technical descents. It doesn’t allow you to eat when you want to eat. Uh those all of those little tiny factors accumulate into a really difficult race to actually prepare for. And therefore when some of these athletes who come out onto the run who you would expect you know a great example is Richard Murray he has a 29minut or 28 minute 10k he’s not able to replicate that in exter racing because he has accumulated so much fatigue. Yes. So it’s interesting actually because the athletes and we talk about maybe Yansil Sloth Nielson uh and some of the others men and women this year who have ducked out a bit of the middle part of the Extera World Cup season to go and race on the road. The interesting thing for me, Oliver, talking about that is how most of them have been focusing on the 70.3 discipline. And to my mind, as a as a coach and someone who has a rough understanding of physiology, that’s interesting because you talked about accumulated fatigue, right? So, not many of them as we watch the first exit here. That’s there we go. He’s not Well, he’s not sticking to the plan then, is he? That’s not a particularly well structured plan in my opinion. Here is uh Felix Fizier actually in the second group. And I think I may have even seen Yenza Milofen. Maybe that’s wrong. Well, if you have, I tell you what, that is quite some swim. There’s Felix Parisier diving in by the looks of it. Mikuel Bonachina, Maxim Chaire up in that group as his middle. Holy. Oh, man. Oh, good luck. You got to get moving out of that area pretty quick. There goes Arthur Ser. He’s in what? Just we’ll check the timing in a minute, but Ser was just outside the top 10 there. So, Yensroth first through Yan Krnowski, the Polish athlete in second. Felix Parisier was there in third. Lucas Mace out in fourth. Hugo Boschnner in fifth. Henry Braml Reeks in sixth. Mikueli Bonachina doing what he said he’d do and holding back a little bit in seventh. But Yens Roth not sticking to plan but swimming really well. Max Shane who had a very good short track race midweek was out eighth. Porter Midar the best of the Midar so far. So he is swimming really well right there just ahead of the French athlete Elliot Labour. Anyone surprise you in there as we look at that split timing. stat Uber geek. Oh, except for Yens who said he wouldn’t swim fast and now he’s swimming fast. Are you telling me we’re supposed to believe everything they say pre-race? Of course not. I told it to me in confidence. Oh, you said on air. I did. I I did reveal his strategy, but all the guys are in the water at this point. They don’t know what’s happening. Yenza Milof Neielson is actually 31 seconds back on this group. That’s kind of where we’d expect him to be, although it doesn’t seem to be a great swim for him just yet. No. No. Let’s see. I see Felix Fericier. Felix Fericier out in third. Oliver, what chance is there that Felix Fericier gets a World Championship win today? Because I I tell you what, if there was ever an athlete in here that was worthy of it. I know he’s a Frenchman and we’ve had this French domination of Extera. But before we leave Europe and go back to America next year, there’s a guy who deserves it. No. Yeah, there’s three there’s three of them. There’s three guys and so I’d say 30% chance for each of them. Uh our tour has been really dominant on this course. Felix has had incredible form throughout the entire season. He’s Mr. Consistent. He’s really stepped up his swim. That’s why we see him here, you know, in third place on the swim just in this, you know, the first lap. But somebody like Yenzil who swims a little bit worse, rides really well on the bike. I think he’s stepped up his level a lot this year. And so I actually have him circled to take a win today. Yes, he is going to be very, very interesting to watch. and Similar Nelson who will have been licking his lips at the increasing technicality of the bike course over the last few days as it got wetter, muddier, slicker. I’ve run around that bike course this week, Oliver. You’ve ridden round it and you’re still alive. You haven’t got any broken bones. I ran round it and nearly landed on my bottom on a number of occasions because the roots go in every different direction and never a helpful one. They’re slick and wet. Let’s watch the exit now of the elite women. I think that’s on Cifford Ana Grab Müller right there. Headedley I think was first out was she not? It looked like her. Barbaros also in that group. Isa Hedley as you say now that is a leading group cuz look at the gap to the rest of them. And Rael Solless as well somebody you mentioned coming from Verde. Really strong swimmers these girls. Yeah Rael Solace from Costa Rica in case any of you are wondering what that flag is. Those of you who know it will know it. Of course the flag of Barbara Riveros is the flag of Chile. So look at that for a multinational top six out right now. But a distinct gap between them and I think that’s Bill one we’ve just seen coming out. That’s and I do not That’s Lan Deon. So the girls I think have about a 30 second gap here on the leading group. That’s kind of what we’d expect though. Uh I think Will will that gap grow though now on the second lap? It will probably. Yeah, I I would say maybe a minute and a half is what Anita’s looking for. Maybe two. So kind of within the ordinary. Anna Zender here, a really strong uh runner and Elizabeth Kuridori also behind her. Yeah. So this is Isa Headley now diving in. That shows how long the run is to get round that Australian exit. It’s enough of a run to get the get the blood flowing back to the legs again. Isa Hedley, the young British athlete who has burst onto the scene of Xtera this year. She’s been uh she was third at the European Championships in Germany in Zittow. She was third in the short track midweek and she was third in the short track at uh in Czecha as well. So, in actual fact, in the last three rounds of the Extera World Cup, she’s been third in all of them. Will she be third today? We will see. But what do you reckon, Oliver? I’m talking about a British athlete here, so I can’t say cuz I’m I’m I’m unbiased, of course. I think Isa is a fantastic athlete. I think she’s honestly the future of the sport. The level that she’s shown is just incredible. I fear, you know, I mentioned fatigue. She’s a young athlete who just doesn’t have that experience. That’s why we expect somebody like Sullivan Midaw to not do as well as compared to his, you know, 46-year-old dad because his dad is just able to sustain fatigue better and run after fatigue. That’s really the determining feature of these races. That takes us back to the earlier conversation which I must finish now. I talked about it, didn’t I? The accumulated fatigue, as you said, and the propensity for some of these elite athletes to spend some time during the season racing 70.3 before coming back to this. So, you know, why is it 70.3? What is it about that distance which matches the physiological kind of demands of Extera? Yeah, I think it’s time first of all time wise it’s the the the fastest. It’s also the easiest to get into. I know somebody like Yens may or may not be flirting with getting into full iron man racing and I’ll turn the question back over. What is the best combination of road experience to have to come into external racing? And in my opinion, it is exactly what Barbaros has. It is a combination of having fast top end by having done some Olympic distance but also having the fatigue resistance which you can build on iron man courses. Yeah. I mean uh until you lot if you’ve never watched this before we will show you some shots of the technicality of that run that 10k run. It is tough. There are bits as is always the case with Xtera where there will be athletes scrambling and at times using hands to hang on to trees and rocks and roots. It is not an ankle friendly run at all. Uh the opening is lovely. It’s a kind of grally fire road on the way out, but then once you uh once you get up onto the the narrow trail around the waterfall and then back down through the woods, it is scrambly, rooty, off camber. It’s just generally nasty. And that is uh actually a lot of the bike course is like that. Once they’ve crossed the road at Andala and they go into that really technical muddy section, there’s not much which is direction friendly. All the roots go in the wrong directions. It’s often off camber. It’s a It’s a technical nightmare and it’s probably at its worst today. I think in these conditions, the these Extter Courses are so hard. I’ve done I’ve done 70 point free racing. I’ve done Exter Racing and I can tell you even though Extter Racing only takes, you know, if you’re really fit, 3 hours, free hours and a half, you finish and you are completely cooked. Whereas, if you finish 70 free race, sure you’ve gone hard, but you’ve kind of stayed in tempo for most of the day. It’s more of an eating competition, at least in my eyes. Extter racing is just on and off, you know, repeat it. Think think of 3030s, you know, doing 30 second intervals on the bike. That’s exactly what exter racing is. You have to go full for these short periods of time and then you’re off and then again and again and again and then you have to run a 10k really hard trail uh run after that. We are looking at two leaders. Yensroth is one of them. He’s a naughty boy because he slipped us the uh little lie that he was going to hold back. Or maybe he is holding back. Maybe that’s the point, Ollie. But he has company in there as well in that uh elite men’s field. I’m not entirely sure yet who it is. Is it Federico Spanatzi? Because he was swimming well midweek. I believe that’s actually young who I had the pleasure of sitting next to in the ceremony after the short track. He’s a really nice Polish guy. Uh he’s quite young. Come come here. This is these are some of his first seasons in the in with Vixter racing. I think he’s somebody to look out for and yeah, maybe if he can improve his bike a little bit more, then we’ll see him in the top 10s as well. Did you speak with him in Polish? No, sadly not. For those of you who don’t know, Oliver Tander is a bit of a language man, mainly because he’s not British and we Brits are terrible with languages. He’s been helping me out the last few weeks with my with my road cycling commentary with name pronunciations. It was the Tour of Slovakia, wasn’t it? I was covering a couple of weeks ago and he was very good at delivering me little voice notes with how to say uh Slovak riders names, Czech riders names and all sorts. Anyway, the issue with that was that Jess at one point sent me a Hungarian rider and and and because Slovakia sits on the top of Hungary, some of the uh town names are Hungarian influenced. And so here was me trying to pronounce Hungarian and that just didn’t go particularly well. Hey, while we’re still watching the swimmers and we wait for the men to exit, uh, on the road cycling front, in fact, mountain biking and everything front, I have some brilliant news because although Extera is going to be leaving Mulano and TanTino here specifically this year, uh, it was announced yesterday that in 2031, the UCI, the world governing body of cycling going to be bringing the combined super cycling worlds right here to TanTino and using the vast amount of uh, resources available to them in the Doomite. as well. So that’s going to be BMX, Mountain Bike, Road, Mountain, sorry, BMX, Mountain Bike, Road Track, Gravel, Enduro, Grand Fondo Esports, Pump Track, and Bike Polo all coming here. And the reason I mention it is because it’s been such a wonderful host to Extera here in TanTino. And although you’ve got a short wait to 2031, that will be a mega party of Doomite Mountain fun in 2030. I look forward to that. Right, here’s the exit. Yangish Kovski actually leading out of the water. This is unbelievable. Well, this is Yanzrost right behind him. Somebody who we call the albatross. He didn’t get to do his signature albatross move because he’s not leading out of the water. But T1’s going to be really important here. I think these guys are going to try to work together. Yens, I think, did not go full full. There’s a difference between uh if you’re such a good swimmer, you can really just coast on this water, swim really fast while actually using very little effort. Here we see Michael Bonachina coming out in third place. Felix Fizia, I think, is in fifth. There he is. Oh, it’s Porter Midar who’s again swam the best of the three mud midars there at the moment. Sullivan’s up there as well. There’s Federico Spinati coming through as well. The man who led out of the swim in the short track midweek. So, the longer distance meaning he’s a little bit further back as well. This looks like Milson coming out. Yes, it is. The Dane has swam so well. Now, bearing in mind that’s not his favorite. It is slippy in there. They’ve got to be careful these athletes. I actually made a mistake. That is actually Bramvel Reeks who read uh who led out of water. That’s a really strong performance by him swimming in front of Yanzro. But the Yanzro here is the first on the bike. And I wonder what that gap to Yenzil was. Well, there goes the exit of the swim. And there there are backpacks going on here. I think if we can see for Felix Fericier. So, he’s got a kind of a That’s interesting. That’s something that Felix Fericier is doing that I can’t see anyone else doing there. He’s got a backpack on with a hydration bladder inside it and probably some gels. He’s the only one doing it and I like to see the innovation from a man who wants to move from silver to gold. Jula also has a little tiny backpack. Uh and that’s a vest from actually Frederick Spinata. But um Felix has been doing this the entire season. He’s been riding with vests. Uh I know he didn’t do it actually in check. I figured that once we got up to the big leads and it was such a big competitive race, maybe he wouldn’t do it. But yeah, he’s he’s ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch chosen to go with it. And here we have Venzir exiting T1. I think that’s only a minute gap. That’s a really good ride for Felix. And importantly, in front of him is Arur Forzier, who is one of the only capable enough bike riders to ride the course with him. Oliver and I are talking to you from the little black tent right at the top of the screen there. By the way, amongst those camera trucks there, that is where we are. We’re right alongside the course as they head out. There’s still a bit of tinkering with shoes going on as they head out, too. What a great swim by the British athlete Henry Braml Reeks. Although he did come across in transition, sliding out. I think he’s all right. But we’ll look to see where he’s now slotted in as they ride out. This opening section takes them along the flat fast part of the short track course. That’s what you can see in the background. There’s the jump. They’ll go past the the log drop as well and the slatted BM, which will also be used in the Youth World Championships, which run tomorrow, by the way. And we’re broadcasting that live, too. the youth and junior world championships in its second edition. This is an opportunity though, this flat bit here, uh, Oliver, for them to take on any gels, adjust things, get gloves on, zip up the Gilelays. Some of them might even be putting on something like a buff or something to keep the neck warm because they will get cold around the edge of Lagod Bor, which is where they’re going right now. Uh, that looks like a shortcutish. I’ll maybe pretend I didn’t see that cuz I’m not sure that’s the way they’re going to go. That’s the edge of the short track course. Look how muddy it is because that’s what they’ve had to contend with um because of the short track racing this week and oh my goodness me this is a oh dear this is a real issue for Brandon Rakita my goodness me the women exiting now let’s focus on them for a moment and grab Müller this is Barbaros also in that group so I think that’s a five or six women group uh leading but the gap to the group behind him is actually not as big as we expected Jess no it’s not things are closing up very much in the in the women’s race there. It’s some of the actual men’s back markers is who who have been caught. This is Emma Drew exiting out of the water I think in sixth place at this point. A great swim by her as well. There will be a little bit of an overlapping here. We’re watching there. Let’s have a look. There’s Isa Headley in as well. Another slip I believe from Anat Grab Müller. Yeah, Alan Cifford here getting ready to to get onto the bike as is Hedley and Barbaros. Yeah, Riveros with another good swim as well. Headedley once again with a good swim. This is the trail around the edge of Lago Deior. It is really the only flat in the opening what 10 12 km of this loop because they continue to climb once they’ve crossed away from the lake here. They cross the road and then they start a long long draggy mostly gravel climb. What they’re on right now is kind of like Parkland Trail. Very, very fine gravel around the edge of Lagodore. They’ll be getting cold at this point though, Ollie, cuz it’s only about 10° here today. They’re soaking wet from the ice cold lake. Anyway, they’ve taken the wet suit off. So, suddenly everything’s getting freezing cold and this is where I I think I would definitely be putting on a Gile or something like this. Here goes Young Isa Headley, the British athlete. Is she leading there? There’s Grab Müller. Grab Müller in second. So, the two strongest swimmers in the race by the looks of it. Out. They are slippery. You’ve got to hit that with enough speed to get up and over there. By the way, if anyone takes that too slowly, it’s covered in chicken wire, but they’ve got a couple of those flyovers in and out of bike. There goes Solen Bilwan unzipping her uh wets suit as well as they’re still catching quite a number of the men here. It shows the quality of the front end of the women’s race to have closed up that 3minute gap. Right now I can tell you we have uh ebike camera operatives including my very good friend Doug Hall who’s kind of in charge of Xtera in Europe. He’s going to be out there on the bike course. You’ve got to hit it with a bit more speed than that. That was Solace there from from Costa Rica really milking the edge of her tire grip because you’ve got to hit it with more speed. Here we see Yen’s Ro still leading the front of the race and I don’t I think that may actually be Michaela Bonachina in front with him. Right behind him we saw um Felix Fizier leading the group behind him. This part where Yens was getting dressed is actually a really really draft dependent part. So, it’s not that bad of an idea to get dressed, get some nutrition in. You’ve just swam for 23 minutes. You don’t you want to fill up those sugars that you haven’t been able to get in on the swim. And I’m actually surprised how fast these guys swam that. Yeah, they are, by the way, at the moment at about 600 m of elevation above sea level. They climb a full,000 m really up into the forest. It is a long, long draggy climb. And don’t forget, they do that twice. Two laps on the bike and then two laps on the run. Here is the world champion, threetime world champion, Solain Bilwan. She will know how much speed you have to hit it with, but even she’s cranking it a bit there. The problem is Oliver, it’s tacky and muddy before you even get to the fly over. So, building up speed is not easy. And they’ve got a few twists and turns to take on as well. This is Lan Duvoan. And we noticed, didn’t we? Uh oh, she’s got Martandito with her, the World Cup leader. Mendito is hooked up with Duvoan there as well. And Lan is interestingly wearing a Gile of Sandra Mayhoffer. She must have she must have gotten that from her. Sandra is uh one of is a two-time Mastera champion who has been coaching her on some of the technical sections. And here we see them coming into this uh difficult uphill section. Oh, I tell you what, Martandito rode almost on the edge of the chicken wire there. If you go off that chicken wire on the slippery wood, you are going to come down. There’s no doubt about that. You’ve got to hold a straight line up and over the flyovers. They’re the most technical feature we’ve seen so far. Back to the front of the race now. I think though we’ve got Mikuel Bonachina leading and this is the camera shot from the back of our ebike as well. Yensroth get working his way into it and Max Shane what a ride he’s had there in the blue with the white helmet sitting in third right now. He swung well. We’ve barely mentioned the Frenchman and he is a very strong biker who will revel in these conditions. Max is Mr. Consistent. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a really good race here. The bike really suits him. He’s technically really adept. But here we actually see Yen’s road coming through to the front. I am honestly quite shocked by this. Yens has really stepped up his game on the mountain bike. He used to just be kind of a really strong swimmer and yeah, to be leading here is really impressive, but I think that’s actually Felix moving up in the group behind him. Yeah, this is the part of the course for those of you who don’t know the course here at MVA. We’ve been doing it. This is the fourth year we’ve done it. So, lots of you who’ve watched our live coverage again and again will know this course. But this is the part where the any of the strong, how do I describe this? Pedaling riders can make a difference. When we talk about strong riders, we might sometimes be talking about riders who are both technically strong and physically strong on the bike. If you’re physically strong but not as technically strong, this is where you need to make your gains because it is really not technical this at all. Uh it is a fine packed gravel slate trail. You can just see the surface. There are all the way up it those uh the ra the rain drainage slats which basically take the rain down off the mountain and into the waterfall down beneath it. There’s a fantastic looking stream that runs down the middle of the valley. They’re going up, but this climb goes on forever and ever. You can see it in the graphic down there. It climbs right up to the village of Andalo, the town of Andalo, where the opening ceremony was, where the where the World Cup presentations were as well. And it just drags and drags, but it is not technical. There’s literally nothing for about six or seven kilometers up here. There really is nothing other than just pedal, pedal, pedal, and breathe. And I tell you something, having run up this trail quite a few times this week, the further up it you go, the harder you breathe because they get into the elevation which starts to test the thinness of the air and your body’s ability to cope with that. Ollie, now that’s Isa Hedley still on the lakefront, I believe. Yes. And she will be probably followed at this point by Ana Grabler of Isa Graler in front of her. What you were just talking about is really important. The first half of So the the course, let’s kind of split it in half, right? or there’s thirds. There’s a long uphill, a middle part, a really technical plateau section. That’s the middle. And then there’s a long descent. Yeah, this uphill, the first half of this uphill is really draft heavy. So, you want to be in a group. That’s why it’s so important that Yenzil came out with Artur Fizier who’s going to be able to work with him. Um, you saw there Maxim Chaet doing the right thing and sitting on the wheel of um Michaela Bonachina as we try to look if we can see the first women. I wouldn’t be surprised if Anak gra comes out first here depending on how the cold has has affected her. Oh, when you say cold, I think you mean as in the upper respiratory tract infection rather than just the cold of the water. We’re just going to see a little recap of the swim here. By the way, here’s Roth getting his his goggles ready. Um, no great surprises in the swim other than maybe that Roth fed you a bit of a a red herring in saying he was going to hold back. Maybe he did hold back, but he was still up there. I think the the standout performance probably actually in the men was from Henry Braml Reeks, my countryman, the Brit who led out first before falling in those bottom in the transition. Let’s see where he goes on to finish though as well. That was Roth out for the first of those two splits. I love some of the dives in here cuz they’re taking to the air, seeing there’s still an athlete beneath them and then trying to backtrack and break in air. Doesn’t quite work like that. That was Solen Bilwan as she dove in. Well, just like that for our elite athletes, that is the last time we’ll see them swimming in Lagod Mulvo. Having said that, some of these nutters will be probably going in for a dip tomorrow for fun anyway before they head off around the country. Right, back. Are we looking at live shots? I think we are. This is McKuel Boncina who for a number of years we’ve said swim specialist. He’s the shark. He’s the man. He has changed the way he races this year and not just changed it. He’s part of the organ organic coach team and he’s really worked on his biking and his run. He needs to be considered a threat certainly for the top five. But look at that. He looks round and he’s in a pack. Who wants to push the pace in here? Because a number of those athletes are just sitting pretty. Even Max Shane there now he comes through. Bonaccina wanted that. What we need to get our heads around Oliver is who do we have in this leading pack of what could even be 10 athletes here. Yeah, exactly. is you say, “I don’t think it’s Ben Forbes sitting on the wheel, but I honestly this moto is a bit too close for my liking.” Uh, you know, dra the drafting effect here is so important. So, it’d be awesome if that was able to get a little bit further away from the athlete. That’s exactly why you saw me. Oh, and it’s caused a split in there. This is not the fault of I I one of our riders is riding this lead, but I think it’s Doug Hall. He won’t want that. He’ll know it as well. But bear in mind, the camera is on the back of his bike. I think this is the ebike and sensibly he’s now powered away because it had pulled Shana and I don’t even think it was Bonina. It was one other athlete. Now the camera’s out of the way. So please apologize. We we we shouldn’t have too many of the eyeball type shots. You’ll see it from a little bit further off. And this is the first of one of those curves by Max. Max going away from this group. That’s really surprising to me. He he must be feeling really good at this point cuz I would I would imagine that you still wait for another 2k before you start to make your move till you get to that technical section. Look at that 19.7% maximum gradient and I think that comes on some of those technical muddy bits. There are a bit a couple of bits Oliver where I think we will see some of these elite athletes having to if they don’t have enough speed into them and they start slipping then we could see them getting off and having to run some of these bits. But it’s not yet. It’s not until we’re up into they go past a wood cutters cottage which has a picture of what I think is a king fisher and a and another bird in wood carved alongside it. After that point it really gets messy. It’s very pretty but messy in there. What did you spot about tire choice cuz that’s been another thing that’s been a topic of conversation this week. Very actually was a surprisingly wide array of ch tire choice. Most of the athletes seem to be going double mud both front and rear as we see Aneta Graul riding with Isa Headley. Uh this Yeah, Isa seems really strong here. I don’t think there’s any any woman in front of her. But just back to my Let’s just strip that point back. When you say double mud, we’re talking about tires with a with a square tread uh pattern, big lumps, big big gaps between them to allow extra grip in the mud. Right. Exactly. And then very interestingly, a lot of the rest of the athletes seem to go with a mud tire only on the front because they said, “I would like if I start to lose grip, I would like the indication to come from my rear rather from my front.” And the one athlete who I saw not do that was Yenzil Sllo Neielson. Yeah. So, he has it only on the back and on the front he has a slick. Do you know what? I think that’s what I’d go for with grip. But to be honest, I would go for the double mud tire. But uh I I’m maybe a little bit biased because I haven’t ridden around this course. You have. I’ve run round it a number of times on the mountain bike trail and it was crazy slippy on my my trail running shoes. But of course, when you’re on a 29iner, as I think all of these athletes, I haven’t noticed anyone on a 650b size wheel. They should all be on the 29in wheels. By the way, maybe by the time we’re in Rudoso next year, there might be someone on 32in wheels because if for those of you who don’t know, they are making a thing now. Particularly in cross country racing, there’s even some of the downhillers thinking about it. Apparently, 32 in is touted to become the next big wheel size and those bikes look amazing. Have you seen them Ollie? I have not seen that, but we do have a history with Vtera of bigger wheel sizes being more popular here than become before they come to the mountain bike world cup. Yeah. Yes, indeed. I think it was was it not was it Conrad Stalks who used the big wheels first in Xtera? Well, we’ll have a chance to ask him. We will ask him. Yes, we’re going to have the caveman in here in our commentary position a little bit later on, probably by the time they’re on to the run as well. So, I know Conrad at the moment is doing uh a bit on the mic at the finish line along with Chin, our finish line announcer. Oh, hello. Hello. Look. Yes, Zipper has caught the two of them up as well. This is this is exactly the part of the course that is going to suit the road triathletes. They undeniably have a lot of power. The issue is when they get up to the roots, that’s going to be the big question time. Are they going to have the technical capabilities to stick with somebody like Solen Biluan who undeniably is on, you know, some her technical capabilities are equal to somebody like Civilia Blanc, somebody who races on the UCI mountain bike circuit. So, Cif just pulling away going straight past them. And uh but the fact that she’s catching them on this climb. Oo, Headley’s going with her and there’s a little bit of daylight to grab Müller. Don’t want to close that up because as you say Oliver, this is really the only part on the course until you come back to the loop around the edge of the lake where drafting is going to help. But what they’re going into in the really technical stuff, they won’t want to be that close of course cuz you need to see the trail right in front of you. So the gaps will open up there for sure. But let’s just go back to Aneta Grab Müller. You said earlier that she has come into this with the cold. What what we’re talking about there is an upper respiratory tract infection, right? So she got ill when she came out here. She wasn’t her best in the short track. I have to say it’s such a shame because Anetta Grabler this year has upped her game. Again, the Czech athlete and I would have seen her as a real threat for the podium here today, particularly in these conditions. We saw what she was like in Oak Mountain when it got really wet and muddy there. She’s still looking good right now. Currently, she’s in third place in this race, but have you got any insight into whether her illness has got a little bit better over the last few days and and that kind of I do, Jess, and I don’t have good news. I I saw her yesterday and she said she was coughing three times as much as she was a day before of a short track. However, today so far, she looks good. Uh, honestly, we’ll see once we get to the technical once we get to the technical stuff. Ana is a really strong mountain biker. She not just a not just a swimmer. She really has stepped up her game this season. Uh she’s focused on the Extera season fullon. Uh I I know that she’s focused on her run. That’s maybe still a question mark to be developed for the future, but yeah, she’s she’s become one of the top staples in the women’s field. And if you want to see how much the rider in black here at the back of these three Aneta Grab Müller has come on, go back and watch our live coverage of the short track race from Czecha in in August because her win over the World Cup leader winner, sorry, Marta Mandito was unbelievable. Yes, it was in front of a home crowd and a race a course that she knows really well, but the the grit and guts in that sprint up the final really steep rise to the finish line in Czecha from this woman and etm was something to behold for sure. It’s really important to note there just the the mindset that these athletes have coming into these races and I remember Aneta had a bad day the the day before that but coming into that short track she didn’t expect to win but here actually we see Maxim Shai with a big gap and he’s just crossed that road section. So this is where it gets testy. This is the top of the roady type of climb really. This is the top of the grally bit. He’ll go past what I call the wood cutters cottage. There is someone who lives in there. I don’t know if they cut wood but there’s there’s plenty of wood around it and the wooden car. He’s going to lead to that point. But you’re right. Yenmir Sloth Nelson has come up behind Porto Midar. This is Mikueli Bonachina leading this group. Uh, everybody’s in there. Everybody Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Now, hang on a minute. You say that. Where’s Arthuria? Arthur is right there. He’s sitting right right behind Felix for his right. So, that’s that’s Sorry, that’s Portoidar there. That’s Doug Hall on his ebike. Wrapped up to the nines as well in the group. Yes, in the group. Good lad. Jula, not surprised that he’s here. He’s somebody who’s really young. He’s raced on the road a lot this year. He’s really strong. Yenzro seems to be just struggling off the back of this just a little bit, but still this group has complete Uber bikers. Right. Shane has done I think quite a clever thing here as well. He’s a great technical biker as well. There he is in the blue just out the saddle rising over the top of that pushing. That’s this is actually on a concrete path. You can see how steep it is. Look at the pace of Yenroth. He is zigzagging to get up this. It does not give you any indication of how high this is. Is attacking. Sorry. Is attacking. is un for front of a of a group and I do not see a response from our tour or Felix Freezier. Maybe Felix is trying to push it back as we see Kieran McFersonson now blocking the shock a little bit. Yes, that is um that is the timing from that road crossing point. Elliot Labort and Fedric Spinatza here in a group together. Yeah. Wow. So, Yenzil Nelson wanting to get ahead of that lot before they get into the technical stuff because he’s such a great technical biker. He won’t want any of this lot around him. He needs clear space as well. And what we haven’t seen yet is the like where are the likes of Ben Forbes is because Ben Forbes is another of those we’d be looking to work his way through on the bike. He might not be having quite as much fun. He will have fun on the descent though because the the descent when it comes there’s some fantastic jumps. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some pictures of Ben Ben Forbes coming through on that. Let’s see if he’s in here maybe in this group that is now coming up. We’re looking for the Aussie in here because he’s one of the strongest bikers in this field. That was Nicholas Dur I believe one of the winners of Exttera France. really strong mountain biker there. And this might be just be Yangisovski passing us now. Yeah. And Red uh Reed Leg, I’m saying that right. Right. Y Reed Leg was first out of the swim midweek as well, the American here on his Red S Works. This is a really hard climb this although it’s a very smooth gradient. It’s so steep up to the Wood Carter Scottish. Again, we can see athletes just having to zigzag it. Having to zigzag it to take out the gradient. Once they’ve gone past that point though, they turn left and they do a snaky course here around the edge of the mountain. It’s kind of this is about you’ll see it probably on screen at some point. They’re about 1,200 m of elevation here and they’re not at the highest point just yet. They get over 1500 m, but by here they will definitely be feeling the thinner air. There’s no doubt about that. Yens is just pushing this group now. And we’ll see now it’s going to level out a little bit. So I wonder if he’s going to try to have somebody else have a pull. Maybe Sullivan who is sitting right behind him. uh or if he’s going to try to yeah keep pulling this group. Now Max Shannet continues by himself out front. I have to say I take my hats off to our ebike riders out there who are getting these shots. It’s the only way we’re able to see this. They’re right up in the Doommites. They’re in the high mountains here in amongst the thick of the forest and the only way we can get these shots is from our brilliant ebikers who are out there doing it. So well done to Doug Hall and the rest of the team doing it. Max Shane leads the man who was fourth in the world championship last year and fourth in the short track here in Mulvaneo. This is a different kind of ride by Max Shane today though because he wants to lead this. He must know he will know that this man is coming. Yenil Sloth Nelson is sewing up the gap here but he’s being followed by Sullivan Midar. Felix Fericier with the backpack on here and I think Fericier himself wants to get ahead or at least on terms with Yenzil Sloth Nelson. We haven’t yet got the separation we might expect to see in this group. Have we? Yeah. Now this is a race within the race. We want to see these guys or these guys want to see themselves come first to that technical section. I think Felix and Arto are both looking at Yens thinking he’s going to try to attack here because he is technically a little bit superior to us in terms of raw power numbers. I’d say those guys are a wash. All of them are topnotch. But Yens has a mountain bike background. He seems to be able to handle the bike just a little bit better than these guys. So maybe blocking him from getting in there first is a great strategy. By the way, right up there is uh Joseé Ignasio Galves. Galves is riding really well here. Yes, he’s being dropped by this group, but he’s had a fantastic swim, the Spanish athlete who races with a number 64 on his tattoo. He’ll probably look to form a second group here by the looks of it. This is Arur Ficier in the uh the blue with the white tops as well. The man who’s finished second in the World Cup this year. He’s been so consistent. The strange thing is actually if we go back three or four years ago, the the the balance of the balance between Arthur Fericier and Felix Ficier was actually quite different. It was Arthur who was the the the stronger really of the two Fericier brothers, but Felix has come on so much these last few years. And we can actually see I think Arthur Fericia here as they approach now the wood cutters cottage. There’s that wooden carving on the left hand side. I was wrong. I don’t think it is a kingisher. It’s kind of like a squirrel eating a salmon or something odd like that. But this is where it gets really technical. This is what we were talking about where the roots are all over the place. Sha’s come off the edge. They’re trying to go into the forest to get around it. Look at those roots as well. Is running as well. All of these guys are running and this is not the worst of it, Oliver. It gets worse than this. Exactly. This is going to be absolute carnage. Yeah. As you said, Arur Fizier is a really strong mountain biker. He’s had sadly a couple injuries, but yeah, these guys having to go off and run. This is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Forier by this point last year was out, wasn’t he? Spent most of last season out. We can see him and the others. That was Midar having to uncip and get off. I think everyone’s running. I knew this would happen. And I have to say, actually, one athlete, I think, had the best line there. And here we have Alan Cifford actually leading the woman’s race with a gap already. This is the part that would have suited her. We are not surprised that she has a gap here. Now let’s see how she fares on the technical section which is going to come up in a couple minutes time where we just saw them. Isa is still being followed by Aneta Graul. Both of them look really strong. Aneta should come into her own on the technical part as should Isa Levo because technically she is also very gifted. I’m just watching Alana Cif here though. It’s so hard this section. I’m worried for her that she might be going too hard on this first lap. One of the bits of insights we see is aa Headley coming past Aneta Grab Muller two. That’s our top three. One of the insights we got in the pre-race interviews I think Oliver was that some of those possibly more experienced and clever athletes were saying the difference will be made on the second lap of the bike. Not just the bike, but the second lap. And I worry that Alennena Sipper may have gone too hard. I’m happy to be proven wrong, though. Yeah, we’ll see. I think Alan Alanis will see how she’s a the defining factor will be her technical ability as we see Emma Drew somebody who’s also really strong on the bike uh come through. Uh Emma is one of the strongest swimmers in Extera. She’s also nicknamed the mermaid. They share that nickname with uh Anetta. Both of them incredibly. How can you share a nickname? I thought you were the self-appointed head of nicknames. Sort it out, will you? You got to sort that out. I tell you what, Emma Crew, one thing I say about her, she’s the only one of the elite uh women who wear a swimsuit throughout the whole course. I’m always surprised to see that because well, I won’t go into too fine a detail, but she is going to get mud everywhere. It’s always her choice though. That is always what she wears. I’ve talked to Emma about this. Emma, a lot of the women, a lot of the men do seem seem surprised that that she does this, but holy moly, look at this. Look at this. I can’t watch this. What a hold there by Whoa. Oh my goodness. Where’s Yen? I think he has a gap on these guys. Look, he’s about 10 seconds ahead of this group. We’re following Artur Ficier here who is dancing and skating all over the place. That’s Sullivan. Is that Sullivan Midar going into the bushes there and he’s off. He’s put a foot down as well. Max Shane holding it. This is Carnage in here. And we knew this would be the case. It is the most technical this course has ridden since we’ve been here in Mulan. Look at the puddles. Look at the roots. They’re nasty. They’re like witch’s fingers reaching up of the ground to just grab you and send you in the wrong direction. I don’t see Felix Ferizier in this group. I maybe I’m just miss seeing him, but Yenzil seems to be off the front of it. Where is Yeah, where is Arthur Fericier? I have to say, I don’t know how or why. Maybe it’s the color of the kit he wears. He’s so good at hiding and he’s often feeding off the the work of others as well. We’re back with our leader, Alanis Cif, the Swiss athlete who is is apparently by the looks of it just tucking down. She doesn’t need to get arrow, but she’s keeping weight over both the front and back wheel to try and get as much grip as possible. Of course, I explain what I’ve just said. Doesn’t make any sense. How do you keep weight over both the front and back wheel? Um, it’s more important in mountain biking to to get get your back your weight all the way back so that your back wheel gets as much traction as possible. That’s really what these athletes should be looking for. Maybe I have a feeling Alanus, even though she did a bit of racing on the mountain bike uh when she was a bit younger, she may not have uh all of that all of these sorts of minute details dialed just yet like somebody like Senorana might have. Yeah, she did not feature in last year’s um world championship. She’s come to this one as well at the moment the strong runner on the strong runner the strong rider on the bike. Let’s look back though. Isa Headley. Isa’s riding really well here. This is really an impressive ride. About a 10 m gap to Aneta right behind her. Aneta seems to be still doing well. We’ll see if that sickness can develops or doesn’t. But yeah, so far really nice ride from doing brilliantly. And actually give it another few turns here once we’re through the more technical elements on the edge of the wood cutter cottage and let grab will come into her own because after that it gets a lot more technical and then we gradually start the descent. I think it would be unfair though to describe the descent as a whole load of fun. They do take on the Paganella bike course. And by that I mean they have an enormous boardwalk burm. Once they’ve gone around uh the Pradle Lake, the beautiful Pradle Lake at the top of the mountain. They have this lovely boardwalk burm and you start to go into those nice man-made swoopy whoopy bits. You think ah this is like normal bike park. I love it. And then of course um because our bike course designer uh Niko Le Brun has decided no no that’s far that’s not exter enough for us. They then take on the descent which is absolutely bonkers. Loads of slabs of slate all facing in the wrong directions. Off camber, nasty uh natural trails. That’s a key part of Extera, isn’t it? That you should feel like you’re riding what is a natural trail. This is a fire road right now, an access route to the wood cutters cottage. But after that, they really are carving through very natural stuff. Exactly. This is just a pure power test and the technical test comes right after this. Um I would be actually really interested to see where Lan Devon and Solen Bila are right now. There are two other favorites who we haven’t really seen on screen just yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Luan coming to the front very early. Lan has a little bit of a tendency to maybe overpace the beginning of some of these races. Um and let’s see if Sen is up to the challenge or not. This is exactly what happened last year. Last year Lan was leading with Sandra Myhoffer who we saw actually at the road crossing who has been teaching her some of these technical skills. She the two of them led but then on the second loop as you mentioned that’s where a lot of the fatigue accumulated and Senon came through to take that win. So I’m kind of expecting maybe a little bit of a similar scenario but we haven’t seen Iver of a woman yet. No we haven’t seen so Bilana and she is the ultimate allrounder. We know how strong her swim is but she really isn’t she? She’s so smooth across all the different disciplines. Back to the men Arthur Serie unclipping and of course then Arthur Fericier the two French Arur. Look at the roots in here. I’m We didn’t really get a chance to see this in such detail last time. This is our ebiker riding through as well. And you get a chance to see how nasty it is in there. I didn’t really get to see who was uh leading, but there were actually three riders. The third was Maxim Chaet in front of him. About 4 meters was another athlete that is either Yens or Felix. And then there’s a 20 m gap to the rider in front of him. I if I were to guess that would be Yenzil leading the race right as we speak. Isa is now pulling back Alan Cifer. This is a really strong ride from Headley and they’re coming into the technical section. You are watching the Extera World Championship. Both the elite men and elite women racing together. My name is Jess Cox. I’ve got Oliver Tander alongside me. We are sat in a tent alongside Lake Mulvano in the Italian Doommites watching these live pictures with you. So, thank you wherever you are around the world watching it. This is the log keeper cottage as I keep log cutters cottage and these two are going into the technical section. Uh Alanis Cifford the Swiss athlete going low and Isa Headley going high. Neither has worked. They’re both off and running and they will do a fair bit of running on this course too as well. So this will actually suit the strong runners in the course on a day like this. I didn’t really say that but it will because they’re getting in some early running on the bike course here. Yeah, this is this is going to be pure carnage. We actually saw that it is starting raining a little bit as well. Um this is one of the male athletes. I’m interested to see how far Anetta is on this section and if she can actually ride a part of it. Here we see Felix Fizier and Yenzil leading. The two of them have distance Arur which is a completely shocking turn of events. There we have it. There are our two leaders. We expected Yensil Sloth Nielson to ride through. That is is that Sullivan Midar behind? Yes. So Sullivan Midar the winner midweek in the short track race. The face of um Yansson. Is he smiling? He looks to be smiling. He has achieved what he has hoped to achieve. Fix for just taking a look back trying to figure out where is our tour because our tour still has that nuclear run he can rely on. But we are too uh at the beginning of the bike to talk about that even remotely at. This is the high point of the course as well. They have those two have uh well now reached around about 1500 meters. That’s the road crossing and the aid station as well. That’s where coaches are allowed to hand up the drinks they want. That’s Max Shane going through the threetime world champion Arthur Serie and I have to say it is great to see the return of Arur Ficier there to the world championships cuz he is racing really well. He is in what sixth? We’ve got a timing point there so we’ll refresh our timing. This is Porter Midar. Now at the moment the two young Midar brothers are ahead of their dad Usiah but expect to see him coming through. He was fifth last year and he beat both of his sons. So we’re on midar watch here today for the Americans and they are the American athletes that dominate cross triathlon and extra specifically. Mik Bonachina here in seventh place I believe while Kieran McFersonson who is an incredibly strong runner uh we will expect him to move on up even further into the course in eighth. Yen Zot right behind him and I am afraid I do not recognize the rider currently in 10th place. But as you said, Jess, uh something that was confis to me yesterday was that um that Midah has actually a 30inut power equivalent to his 2hour power. That is a dad of the two sons. That’s why we predicted him yesterday to uh have a really strong performance. This I believe is actually the the the athlete who has uh led out of uh the swim, Bramwell Reeks. That’s a really strong performance by him. while Frederick Spinatza here in 11th place. Uh we still see Lucas Mess and who I believe to be Nikico Dur. Elliot Labour also showing up on the screen there while Galv from Spain is still putting on honestly a quite surprising uh ride here so far. Eliot I think will be looking to top 10 this race as will Lucas and Nico. uh really strong athletes. These guys at this aid station some of the athletes will be taking on more sustenance. I know that on the left is the coach of the or is is one of the coaches of the organic coach team. Uh he’s there at various places around the around the course giving gaps, something I actually used to do a little bit uh a little bit further back in time. Uh it’s incredible how he can just kind of you know to to to one’s mind teleport and just give uh splits in these important parts of the races. But speaking of an important part of the race here we have Felix Fizier leading Yenzil. This is honestly a turnup for the books and one I did not expect. Oh Oliver. Yeah it’s come to this point as well hasn’t it? Uh at this stage we can see these two together. This is where it also gets quite technical and tough. What you’re seeing from this shot here does not give you a clear illustration of actually how steep it is here. You think you get to the road crossing and go through the feed zone and that’s well where’s the downhill going to start? But it doesn’t come at you. They just keep climbing. They’re climbing up in little steps then it drags again. We’re watching Sullivan Midar here who has the two of them in sight. We’ve seen the coming of Yenzil Sloth Nelson, but he’s not managed to get rid of Felix Fissier just yet. And he is reminding us just how strong he is on the bike. Sullivan Midar can see them. And he is closing the gap the American. So maybe Oliver, we need to stop calling him the short track specialist and just call him the Extera specialist cuz right now the Americans have an athlete on podium position. I just remind people this is lap one of two in this 30 km bike course. It’s only a 15k lap. I mean it but so much drama happens in there. They take on so much these nasty roots, the muddy tacky technical uphills as well. But at the moment it is suiting Midar. Maybe what he is is a mud specialist. We think back to his win in the states in Oak Mountain of course this season where it was just like this although not quite as many roots but there was just as much mud. So I think that’s one thing we can mark midar down as mud specialist definitely Ollie. Also importantly he’s a young athlete. A young athlete is means that he can make a really nice and easy step up. Um so that’s the reason why we’re seeing him at the front of this race. Somebody else we’re seeing at the front of this race. I believe this is Isa Hedley leading the women’s race. This technical section I tried to ride and here we can see I think this is Mikall Pushek trying to follow the women. Yeah, really difficult even on an ebike. So hard to keep up with the athletes. Uh I do not see Alan Cifford in the picture just yet. I have a feeling that Isa may have been able to overtake her. Although maybe I’m just making that up. And I believe that is Solen Bilwa or maybe Emma Derew right behind. We’ve been looking for Solen Bilwan, haven’t we? the uh the threetime world champion to spot where she is. It looks like a little bit of a problem here for our ebiker who’s doing this camera work. Once again, big hats off to them. It is quite some job to be out there getting these shots for us. So, yeah. Now, here we go. We’re getting back to Isa Headley by the looks of things wearing just the little triuit as well. She’s had a problem there and remounted. Ollie, this this section is so incredibly technical. Uh there’s so much mud. Thankfully, the rain seems to have stopped a little bit on some of these athletes, but Isa dismounting her bike just again. I really wonder who that athlete right behind the camera bike was though because that really did look like Sen to me. We are of course still catching some of the back end of the elite men as well. So, Headley remounting. We have a very special guest in our commentary box that I’ll bring in in just a moment when we switch back to the men’s race. This really gives you a clear indication of why this year is the hardest ever running in Muldo. And in a way, Ollie, it’s appropriate. It’s the fourth and final time we’re here in this world championship cycle. And boy, has the weather turned up to make these Doomite Mountain conditions so so difficult. Man, this is this is so difficult. Some a saying we have in Cyclacross is green is good. And there is no green. There is no green on this course whatsoever. Isa did a really smart thing trying to ride on the very outside of the course. That means there’s going to be a lot of a lot of leaves, a little bit more traction as we see our tour trying to catch up to the front guys. He is alone here. Now he is very nearly at the Pradle Lake, that beautiful bluey green stunning lake right at the top of the mountain. He’s about nearly 1,600 m of elevation right now. The air is thin. It’s very cold up there. I can guarantee you up there it’s probably no more than about 6 7° at the most. It’s another technical climb he’s into though. Very narrow in between the trees up there as we watch the men by the way. And we we’ve just been watching Aruren. Let’s remind ourselves Arurus is the three-time world champion all right here in Mulvo. He’s looking to equal the record of someone who’s also won it four times, but not backto back. Maybe more impressively, four times spread across what is effectively a 10-year period between 2001 and 2010. The man sat to my left is Oliver Tund, but the man sat to my right is known as the caveman. His name is Conrad Stalks. Conrad, it is a delight to have you here with us in the commentary box. Welcome. Thank you so much. Uh I don’t feel comfortable here, but uh this is a honor to be in this position with you guys. You’re very much welcome, mate. It’s great to have your insight. Um what do you think of the course this year and what you’re seeing on screen as well? I wrote the course a couple of days ago when it was wet, but today is next level wet. I’m thinking I’m watching this and I’m thinking this is the kind of race that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. Whatever the result is and the outcome is probably not pleasant racing in the in ridiculous slippery mud like that, but it’s something you’ll never forget. The age group athletes is going to start in a few minutes, the elite athletes. It’s going to be yeah an epic battle not against athletes so much, but also against nature, you know, and the and the conditions that you have. Comrade, just while we’ve got a moment as we watch our elite men making their way around the edge of the lake at the very top of the uh the top of the mountain, you’re in a way the perfect person for me to be speaking to this year because this is the fourth and final uh time that we’re here in Mao for this cycle anyway, the European cycle. It’s very different to uh to Maui. It’s very different to where Extera came from, the dusty, dry technical trails there, particularly on a day like this. I mean it can be lovely and dry and dusty here but the last two years the rain has turned up and this year it’s turned up properly and made it really different and personally having seen all that I like the fact that we’re taking extera to different kinds of terrains to test these athletes. I wonder and I guess you’re wondering what it will be like when they go back to the states. It’s Ruidoso. So it’s not going back to Hawaii. It’s not going back to Maui. It’s going to Ruidoso and maybe that’s somewhere a little bit in between the two. It’s fantastic the fact that extra world championships moves around it. Um they plan on staying more or less three years in in each um location. And it’s fantastic for the athletes because um body types and skill sets. I I’m 85 kg which is like almost 190 pounds. So I wasn’t a climber but I had to race on Maui which is a volcano. And this course is also not a climber it’s a climber’s course. It’s not a big athletes course. So the fact that the world championships moves around means that all kinds of athlete athletes are advantaged and disadvantaged on different courses. So it just makes it much more even playing field. All UCI events have to move world championships from time to time. So it just really makes sense. Um Conrad, one of the questions I think uh the big Exterror fans who are watching will want me to ask you from all the people watching around the world is how are you? How fit are you at the moment? You said you’d been out on some of the course out here. Um and and I mean we’re watching your Sai Midar racing. I’m looking at you. You’re cutting the figure of a very fit man. What if we were to chuck you in there today? Would you be enjoying this? I would love to race. I love racing. Even though I’m not really fit at all, but um I would love to race half the distance, like one lap of each. It would be um a lot of fun. I’m not fit enough for the full thing. Um I coach mountain biking at the high school this year, so I’ve been riding a lot more than I did before. Um but no, I’m not a high level elite athlete anymore. I’m turning 52 uh this month. Um, so as much as I love to race, uh, watching is is next level. Right, let’s bring you up to date what’s going on with the women. This is Landu Voisan who is just catching Anetta Grab Müller. I have to say this is a brilliant ride by Anetta Grab Müller. We know she’s not well. Um, she’s a good friend of you, Oliver. So I know I know Yensroth and others might have fed you a few red herrings along the course of the weekend. You’ve taken them, but she there’s no doubt about the fact that she’s not at her best at all. And she’s being caught by Loan Duvoan there. Here comes Emma Drew. The women are getting a little bit closer to forming something of a pack there. I think the women’s race seems to be on on playing kind of the way we expected. Now we have Lan coming to the front. Uh the last timing split we actually had was her a minute and a half behind the lead girls as we see Yenzil actually putting on a gap on Felix for this should be fun because he’s now into the really interesting swoopy whoopy paganella bike course. This is where we’ll see some big air. But actually, this is a new Yensil Sloth Nilson this year. He might not be crossing up and having as much fun as he may have done in recent years because he is currently leading the World Championship. If anyone was going to style it up and take some air, this is where it will happen. But my suspicion is we’ll see a technically tightened up Yenzil Sloth Nielson who goes for the fastest rather than the funnest. I believe actually that this was Felix Fizier who was in front of him. He was not be he was Yens was actually second. Uh yeah, we saw just a little bit of a blip of Fenix and he was leading the race which is really impressive. We’re watching there. We were just catching Henry Braml Reeks who led out of the swim as well. He’s a little bit further down the course right now. We’re back to our winner winner. Well, we might well be back to our winner. This is Isa Headley. Little bit of leaf across our camera there, but you can’t see her name on the back of her shorts, but the British athlete there as we watch Arthur Paricier now coming through and he’s got one of the midars with him and I can no longer tell who it is at this stage. And I believe he has Doug Hall riding right behind him. Thank goodness Doug is so good at bike handling. Yes, he’s whole. Yeah. Well, Doug himself is a former Extereroa Pro as well. In fact, he was in my Great Britain Elite team when I was the team manager as well. So, Doug knows how to handle a bike. That is for sure. He has got a little bit of assistance on that eBike today. And he, if it is him, is following Isa Hedley right now, who is still picking up some of the back markers in the men’s elite race. I’ll remind people they started three minutes ahead of the elite women. Uh Porter Midaw was actually right behind that I believe. So really strong from the two Midaw brothers uh riding well above their years as here we have Kieran McFersonson still sitting I believe in seventh place at this point. Kieran McFerson who raced so well in the short track midweek as well. The Kiwi athlete again reminding us how multinational Extera is now as well. And um comrade, while you’re here with us, just thinking about that, uh the the the first ever uh winners in 1996 were Jimmy Rkitello and uh Michelle Jones. Michelle Jones, of course, the uh long-distance specialist Jimmy Rketello. I’ve I’ve recently been commentating on his son who’s been racing on the road, of course, in the cycling as well. He’s coming through. He’s just finished fourth in the Wealth Espña, his son. It’s a long time ago, 29 years ago. the sport has evolved so much. It’s now very multinational. Um, what when you look at it today, how much of the the extera that you first experienced, Conrad, back in the late ‘ 90s and the early naughties do you recognize? And what do you think has changed? Well, just from the looks, it’s very different. We came from this tropical, from this island with the beaches and and and the ocean and the volcano, and now we’re in this forest with the mud and the trees and the mountains and the snow cap. um it looks very different which is a really cool sign that it’s evolved and it changed and and growing but also if you look at the participants and if you listen to all the languages and you see all the flags at the start it used to be mostly Americans um at the at the event Jimmy Rkatello I raced him he was a rocket he was half my size and he was extremely aggressive on the bike and we did many uh many battles and Michael Jones won the first silver medal at the Olympic Games in Sydney um at the triathlon um and they both rode triathletes who just came over to Extter just for for fun, you know. And this is uh very highly specialized. All these athletes, most of these these athletes we see train specifically for Extra all year round. You can’t afford to do both. I used to be able to try to do the Olympic triathlon and extra in the same season. And I kind of made it work for a little while, but these athletes, you have to specialize. Um, so yeah, the way the sport has evolved and just getting more and more participants from all across the world, different languages, different cultures, and that’s really what what XT is all about. Out in nature, different cultures and embracing everyone. Conrad, whilst we have you with us here, and we’re just watching Sullivan Midar taking on the technical part of the course. He is already out of the swoopy woofy man-made bits and into the nasty witch’s fingers there that are going to be grabbing at his tires all the time. This is the natural descent. It’s quite new. It’s a real favorite of Nicolola Le Brun because he’s been looking to tweak and change this as, excuse me, the course itself has evolved. He can already see Mulano down there. You can see the lake just beyond him. This is the start of the long descent that’ll end with the really fast run through the town of Mulano itself to complete. I’ll remind people only lap one. We’re not even we’re not even halfway through this bike course yet. And it’s only 30k. On the road, of course, you’d say, “Oh, that’s quite a short bike course. What about 40k?” But this is extra. This is off-road triathon. So much happens out there. Every one of these rocks, roots, and turns just adds that increase of difficulty to it. Comrade, while we’ve got you here, we are looking at an opportunity today here for Arthur Serier to be the fourtime win. Currently, as you sit alongside me, you are the greatest male athlete in the history of this sport. There is one man, a Frenchman today, Arthur Serri, who wants to join you. Now, he’ll go four in a row. I’m not going to sit here with you and say, “Well, that makes him better than you.” I wouldn’t do that. That’s Oliver’s job. No, he would never say that. But but I might. But it’s a special day and of all the athletes in the world I could have sat alongside me right now. It’s nice to have Oliver. But it’s even better to have you because you’re the man whose record he is looking at equaling today. It it must be a special moment for you to watch this. Yeah, actually I didn’t even realize someone one of the extra crew um asked me about it this morning. He’s like, “How do you feel about that?” And it’s like I I didn’t even thought about it. Um I’m just so happy for him and uh uh to see at the level these athletes are at and our tour especially um this is the way he’s evolved as an athlete and consistent every year and how serious and how passionate he is. Um it looks like he’s a little bit more muscular this year which I think is going to help for this course. Um especially the run course. So I really I’m I’m really excited for him and and hoping he can pull it off. He looks extremely solid today. It’s only the first lap. This is a climbing race. We we’re watching the downhill, but in the downhill you can lose a little bit of time, but on the clims, this is where this race has won. Running and cycling, it’s got a lot of climbing, and I think Arur has got what what it really really takes. So, he’s got the experience and endurance. So, those of you who watch the short track midweek will recognize that jump as well. We have Felix Fericier coming down towards us. He’s nearly at the completion of lap one. Oliver, while we’re chatting, do you want to bring us up to date with what we’re seeing? because it looks like we have last year’s silver medalist Felix Fericier coming in with a clear lead by himself at the end of lap one. Felix is leading. He was just about, you know, 10 m ahead of Yenzil. And here we go. Oh, hang on. Has he got a problem here? Has he got a He’s looking down at the bike. He does not look as smooth as he normally does. What’s going on with Yenzil Sloth Nelson here? Could that be the rear wheel puncture or something like that? But it doesn’t look like it’s leaked that much air in that technical descent. We do miss some of the athletes. there is the potential that he’s had an off there or something like that. I must have to say for the gap between him and Felix to have grown that much, my suspicion is something’s happened there in that descent through the forest. Something must have happened, but something didn’t happen to Maxim Cha and Aridier who now are therefore so much closer to the front spots. Yeah. So, we think these two are in third and fourth. Max Shani being careful. There is a chicken run down there as they sometimes call it. Arthur also taking it. I think we’re already starting to see some of the fatigue creeping in and the the non-willingness for these athletes to take too many risks. They’ll have taken so many risks already. I think something’s happened to Yenzil Sloth Nelson in there. I agree. And I don’t think it’s just fatigue. I think you have to think about the cold. We are sitting here on our commentary tent with all of our jackets that we own on. We are so cold and these guys have just come down a alpine descent. You understand how cold your fingers must be after coming out of an alpine lake. That makes such a big difference to how you feel on the bike as we here we see uh Felix Frisier coming into the second lap of the bike. Just to be clear, Oliver and I are sitting here wearing every item of clothing we wear we own, rain jackets and everything. The caveman is sat next to me just just shorts on a vest actually just to be clear. No, he’s not really. Even he’s wrapped up and warm. It is about 9 or 10° here in our commentary tent right alongside where Felix Fericier is now. What chance he would have Hello. Can you see the back tire softening? Yeah, but back wheel is is flat pretty much. He’s riding on his insert. Oh my goodness me. This is a this is a bad moment for the man who’s come to this race, Yansil Sloth Nelson with his best opportunity in this four-year cycle in Mulvaneo to win it. Now, what’s he going to do about this? Cuz he’s got sealant in there. You’d hope it’d be sealing. He’s going to need to get some air in that, isn’t he? Listen, race is not over. He’s now going to come past the coach section. I believe he might be able to get a little bit of assistance right there. Um but yeah, this this race isn’t over. There’s another really hard lap to do. Uh, he has to just reset. Think of it. Okay, I’ve already closed a one minute gap to the top guys. I have to do it again. That’s okay. That’s part of the game. I have to lock in and do my job. Right. For those of you who don’t know it, one of the things that has changed since Conrad stalks alongside me here was racing is that most of these riders are now riding tubeless inner tubes. Sorry, tubeless in tubeless tires, which means they have sealant in there, which if they do get a puncture in the tire, should gradually seal itself over time. But invariably, if it’s a bad one and they’re riding through sharp bits of flint and slate, I’m pretty sure there’ll be other athletes down the field we’re not even seeing right now who’ve had all sorts of punctures and technical issues, it should seal itself, but very often it needs to be inflated to add to it. Conrad, in amongst your four wins in the World Championships, you must have had some technical issues as well, especially in Hawaii. Um, I I think I could have won a few a number of more. I broke a pedal the one year. I had flats twice. um the lava rock was so havoc and also we couldn’t pre-ride the course. It was private land so we could only access the course on race day and it suited my riding style but that’s part of the reason why I’m called the caveman because everything I touch breaks. So the bikes um the specialized engineers if they made a new product they would send it to me and if I couldn’t break it then it was caveman proof and it was good to put on the market. Wow. What what a reputation to have as well. And and you followed, talking of specialized athletes, you followed in the footsteps of Ned Overend, who won the first ever uh edition. Then he went on to win two, didn’t he? The the the what? No, sorry. He won the third and fourth editions 98 and 99. Ned Overend, was there any kind of handover to you in that cycle of specialized sponsored athletes or Definitely. There was an amazing story. So I try and keep creep brief. Um I used to Ned raced extra as well. He was world champion and um so I competed against him quite a bit and back then he was the old man. He was 41 42 43 roundabouts. Um but at altitude he was unbeatable. We raced in Keystone, Colorado starting at um 2,800 m we started and he climb up to 4,400 m altitude and le Ned’s nickname was the lung and there he just he rode circles around us. He was he was really good. Um but he could see my first year extra. I didn’t own a mountain bike so I borrowed bikes. So I went to every triathlon, every extra I went borrowing a different bike and he was watching this as I was going and um I won the USA series and then um he said uh he called me and he said at the week before um extra world champs in Maui he said would you would you like to ride for specialized and I thought it was just talk and I said yeah sure but a week before um this brand new Specialized dual suspension with tubeless just came out tubeless wheels and new helmet and new shoes was dropped at my door and I rode it the first time in Maui um the week before in practice and I won that world title by 10 minutes and I think a major part of it was because of this cool new dual suspension bike with tubeless wheels. 29iner. No wheels or 26. It was 2001. The 29er was only 2008 the first time. So I um there was no contract. There was no agreement, nothing. They just sent me the bike and I won world time champs by 10 minutes and afterwards we uh we s signed a contract and I was with Specialized for um for 16 years during during my career. Oh, comat. It’s such a pleasure to have you with us. We literally couldn’t have anyone better. Right, Oliver? You’re nervously watching the pictures. What’s going on? This is London. I do not believe she’s leading the women’s race just yet. We saw her at her last at our last timing. She was 42 seconds behind Isa, who seems to be still in the race. This is the fun, flowy single track section you were talking about. This is such a joy to ride. Afterwards, maybe not so much. Uh, importantly, only 20 seconds behind her was Barbaros. This is talking to the uh intermediate split and Solen Bilwan another 40 seconds back in sixth place. So she is either riding herself into this race or she is not on a good day. What’s happened to far be it for me to ask what’s happening to the British athlete. But what has happened to the British athlete is a Headley. Where is she? She’s still leading I believe not picking her up for a while. So I hope she’s all right. She she is now getting into the bit where we do lose them a little bit. We’re not going to have the ebikers everywhere cuz we don’t want them getting in the way of the really fast flowing technical bit of the downhill. Talking of which, that’s Barbara. Barbara Riveros has really wrapped up warm. I hadn’t seen how many layers she’s put on. She’s dressed like um well, she’s going out for a snowball fight or something in there. That’s the first time we’ve seen the Chilean fourtime Olympian. And followed by Anatagi. Yeah. Well, she’s moving through then. So, we need to assume that Barbara Averos is moving through. Here comes our early leader, Alena Cifert, who is in fifth place now. So, she’s drifting a little bit back there. The Swiss athlete there crew closing it down. So, the Crew is also working her way up a bit. This is Felix Fier leading on the men’s side. Yens really did seem to be looking back on his tire. I think he probably had a flat and it must have sealed a little bit. Uh seems to have like leaked a little bit of air. Yeah. So, okay. This is lap two of the Xtera World Championships. My name is Jez Cox. I have Oliver Tander with us. We have Conrad Staltz sat alongside us. We have We have Steve Andrew behind me who’s waiting to tell us in a little bit about what’s coming from Ruid Doso when we move to America next year. We’ll hear from him in a little while, too. Meanwhile, though, we will concentrate on the man who’s been silver medalist the last two years, the Frenchman Felix Ficier. He’s won the World Cup again this year. He is Mr. Consistent. The one thing he’s lacked though is a world title to back up just how good he is. He won’t want to win this through technical issues or a puncture through Yenzil Sloth Nielson. And there’ll be loads of you who’ve tuned in today because you want to see the Dne take the win. We’d like to see the Dane take the win. But on the screen right now is a man who has consistently knocked on the door of winning this world title and is in prime position to do so. Right now is Felix is the the most consistent rider in the entire field. He pulls up to every single race and he shows a dominant streak of form. He is not to be under underestimated. I think maybe we can talk about the run course not suiting him as much. I think he likes a harder run course with more elevation meters. A run course here really suits somebody like Yenzil or Archer. Hey, hey, hey, hey, that tire still looks soft to me. Ollie, look at that back tire. I’m not sure he’s got any air into that. I think he’s probably riding on the insert. Oh my goodness me. So yeah, so he’ll just explain that. So you believe he’s got like a foam insert in there which kind of fills the gap and allows you I mean he’s bobbing all over the place. He’s on a hard tail, which I’m guessing, comrade, just thinking about that, you were talking about the full suspension. He’s one of the few athletes who’s opted for the hard tail here. Now, he’s on the hard tail. I guess he’s getting a little bit of suspension from that insert at the back. But what will that be doing to him on this part of the course where he needs to be getting the power down? It makes sense to to pick a hard tail for this course cuz got so much elevation gain. And like I said earlier, that’s where you can make a lot of time is in the clim climbing. Um, and maybe the fact that he chose the hard tail was the reason that he maybe got in a flat through. There’s once high-speed section where you come off the road and through a bunch of rocks and he may have pinched the tire there. Um, and like you said, if he’s running on a on on the insert, he’s got a lot more rolling resistance and he’ll have a tough time cornering at a high speed. Um, you’d think he would have tools with him to um to maybe plug the tire or to put some some sealant in it. Um, but I guess time will tell. I imagine the the tire actually may have plugged itself and just retained a tiny little bit of air. But actually, could you talk to us about what that does? Because I think that’s going to be the most important part right now. What that does to an athletes mind because you are in the world champs. You’ve grinded the entire year for this. You’ve you’ve sacrificed so much. You probably haven’t seen your family as much as you want to. You’ve it’s restless hours that you thought about it. And just to have a little tiny pinch flat potentially ruin your race, what does that do to your head? And I think that’s that’s where we picked it up. We saw him take the wooden jump here at near the finish and on his body language we noticed something was wrong before we saw his tire. You could see in his body language that something is not right and we started looking at his tires and whether he crashed or not. So it looks like it may have gotten into his head and I think that’s that’s where as an athlete it’s um it’s your job to or it’s super important to try to keep a a positive game in your mental game. Um, I’ve broken a chain in the race before and managed to stay calm and fix it and still still won the race. So, the race is not over until the finish line. And I um I see these five Frenchmen in the top six. I heard um from a French uh coach a long long time ago when I was racing on the road in France and the French coach told the athlete, “You don’t think during the race, you think afterwards. During the race, you just execute your race as hard as you can and you can worry and think about stuff afterwards. So stay calm, try and fix the problem and push because the race is far from over. Triathon in general is the ultimate uh living in the moment. The the ultimate um what’s that word for that when you when what’s the word for when you are flow? No. Yeah. Yeah. There be a sense of flow zen. You just dealing with every single little rock and route as you go. You add them all up and that gives you your finishing position as well. It is the um I’ll think of the word in a minute. Mindful. It’s the ultimate mindful sport, it came to me eventually. Isa Hedley is leading still. We haven’t seen too much of her on that technical descent. She’s off the natural part. She’s now onto the urban part, which you’ve got to be careful on. It’s kind of tight-knit slatted cobbles there as well as she snakes her way down. Brilliant drained drone shots here. Once again, our coverage of of all of the Exterero World Cups that we show you here on our YouTube channel and the World Championships are next level. It is Piper Vision, the Italian television company, and all of their crew who are out there making this happen. It is truly world-class, and I’m so delighted to be part of a broadcast that brings you these incredible pictures. So, the British athlete, uh, I’m not building that up too much, am I? Isa Hedley is coming down to complete her first lap. She’s now into the swoopy section. We’ll see her. That’s an interesting line through there. She’s gone very, very wide, and she’s going to be taking on the jump in just a moment on the short course track. Exactly as you said. I do not I believe that’s a male competitor right behind her. That’s not one of the other girls. We would expect to see maybe Loan Devon coming a little bit closer on this descent. Although honestly Isa’s bike handling might be good enough. We see an athlete running with maybe a mechanical right in front of her. Yeah. Yeah. No, they’re they’re the stories we’re not able to tell you too much today is what’s going on further down the hill. That’s one of M. That’s Lucas Mas who was 12th out of the swim out of T2. He’s a really strong athlete. That’s a huge huge um unfortunate event, right? Indeed it is. Indeed it is. There will be issues like that going on right the way down through both fields of the elite and men’s and women’s field. We’ll tell you more about them as we get back to it. This is another of those steep drops. Once again, whenever we see the shots from the air, it doesn’t give you any idea of actually the elevation they’re taking in. That’s quite a steep shoot down there to the track. Isa Hedley is now riding literally right past us. We are sat in the black tent which is to her left in just a moment there. So, she’s right behind us right now as she goes around the edge of transition, ready to start again. That’s Arthur Serier. Now, where is he? Where is he in the standings at the moment, Oliver? I believe it depends. We don’t really have a accurate split just yet. So, it I wonder whether or not he’s dropped or been dropped by Maxim. He is going to be in between them somewhere. And Yay Yen still I don’t think this race is over for Yans. He needs to figure out, okay, even though every single time I try to push power down and every time I push down a a pedal, my bike comes up because yeah, the power transfer although here we see Maxim also got a puncture. Yeah, definitely. Conrad. Yeah, rear wheel puncture for him. Right, we go back to our elite women’s race at the moment. And this is Landuan, winner of the short track race midweek where she would look so good particularly on the run. You can see her suspension is fully unlocked. She’s rocking the full suspension bike there and it’s floating down the the short track course here. I think she’s about maybe 40 seconds behind Isa. So that gap gap seems to remain unchanged. We will have better information for you just in just a moment when they come over our timing mats. Seems like there’s carnage out there. Lots of flat tires. I think athletes are mentally rattled as well because they trained on a course that was not similar not not at all similar to what they’re riding at the moment. And um you need to be mentally super super tough to cope with all these curve balls. Right, here comes the defending champion, Solen Bilwan. Oliver, what position do we think she is in as she takes on the the drop here? This is third place. This is Solen has had an awesome descent here. Kind of what we would expect. And so this race is still open. We have We kind of wrote her off a little bit on the first uphill, but maybe she was just pacing herself. And let’s see what she does in the second lap of this of this bike course. Isa Hedley, the 20-year-old British athlete. I’m doing my best not to get too excited right here. We do of course have history of British women winning this title in the World Championships. The latest of them to be Leslie Patterson, my good friend from Scotland who won this race on three occasions. She’s not the only one. Julie Dibbons won it three years in a row as well. The British athlete. We’re now looking at Aneta Grabler who is doing a brilliant ride here today considering she’s come into this under the weather. You can see her sniffing there as well. She’s got a cold and she’s descended as we’d expect her to as well. What position is she in Ollie? Fourth. Well, that’s remarkable, isn’t it? It really is. Aneta and and Solen, in my opinion, their two strongest characteristics is their head game. And Solen especially is, in my opinion, one word that describes her perfectly is grit. Solen is the strongest athlete with her brain. She can go over these incredibly unfortunate events that happened to a lot of athletes and persevere no matter what happens. As we hear, we see Barbaros in fifth place. Yes, what a ride by her at the moment. And uh comrade, we’ve talked a little bit about the crossover between road and off-road. Barbara Riveros is a tough operator. She’s a four-time Olympian. I believe, although you might know some more about this, Ollie, than me, but I believe she is hoping to qualify for her fifth Olympics as well. It is quite remarkable. She is 38 years of age if I’m not mistaken, but she’s obviously got what it takes to take on this kind of course, Conrad. Yeah, she we chatted yesterday and she said she wants to go for the next for her fifth Olympic Games. It’s amazing. She’s such an all round athlete and I think what really counts in her favor here is power to weight. This course is all about power to weight and you can see she’s a tiny little girl from um Chile and very talented, lots of grit. Um exciting to see her up at the top end of this race. Right. So we’re watching Sain Bilwan. She and Arthur Ser both French athletes rounding in on hoping to win their fourth world titles. But they are both in what? Third and fourth place right now with work to do. Grab Müller is coming through in fourth right now. But look at her back as well. She is absolutely caked in mud. That seems to have maybe even have a sit down in the in the in the mud by possibly. Yeah, looks looks like some of the girls maybe have crashed her bikes a little bit. Uh obviously same for same for the men. This course is just completely unforgiving and it’s just a total mudfest. I have to say Ollie, I’m quite pleased with myself here cuz when I arrived in Mulano on Tuesday, I said, “Look, have you seen the rain? It’s going to be so muddy.” Everyone’s saying to me, I’m not saying you said this, I can’t remember. Everyone said, “Ah, it trains. It drains real quickly. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine by Saturday. It’s it’s going to drain.” No. No way. This is like cyclacross. This is This is off-road triathon. It’s absolute hardest in conditions like this. Exactly. And as you said, Friday, the entire day it rained. This morning we woke up, it was raining. As here we see Alan Cifford. She seems to have struggled on the downhill. She was in a really nice position up at the top. Now losing three minutes. I am nervously watching that drop. And I have to say, we’re going to see some quite dicey drops down that that little drop jump there uh on the second lap because these athletes are going to be tired. This will be really testing conditions. And Conrad, I’m assuming in all the exter uh in Hawaii, the conditions were never like this. Tell me I’m wrong if I’ve missed anything. Um the wire races I’m not saying they were easy. Don’t for one second think I’m suggesting they were easy. They were split. The wine races were split between the dry side and the wet side. Now he’s got two sides, dry and a wet side and the east and the west. So the all my titles I won on the dry side. That was the rocky side with lots of lava. And when we moved to the other side where the race was the last number of years in in Maui, it was clay and there was not a rock in sight and it was too much climbing. I didn’t win anything there. Um but one year it rained a lot there and it apparently it was unridable. Like people had wheels like donuts and the wheels wouldn’t turn and it was a running race from the swim to the to the finish. So, we’ve had mud, but this is fortunately this mud um is doesn’t make donuts in the wheels, but I can tell you that the mud sticks to clothing and it sticks to the bike and it’ll add at least a kilogram, maybe even 2 kg on the whole body. Everything is wet, muddy. Um brakes uh brakes start failing, chains don’t work. There’s so much that can go wrong. You get mud in your eyes. Um you forget to drink and eat because you’re not hungry or you you’re so cold that you don’t want you don’t feel thirsty. So it really makes makes it for a challenging experience. We love Xtera. I hope lots of you watching also love Xtera. The athletes competing love Xtera. That’s why they’re here at the World Championships. But you can’t deny it when they came through at the close of that first lap, by the way, first lap of two. Most of them looked miserable. Absolutely miserable and cold, too, because that long descent when you’re soaking wet and covered in mud, you’re going to freeze down there. A lot of these athletes will have been glad to get back to the start of the road climb. Here we’re seeing Yanza Milson despite his still quite soft rear tire closing up behind Felix Fericier. Maybe it was a crash. That’s what I think it was. I think it was something like that because he suddenly he was right there. Yes, he’s got that soft tire, but um yeah, something something like I can’t see any indication of it, but he’s covered in mud anyway. He’s an absolute climbing machine. You can see him flying up there. He’s light, he’s strong, he’s powerful, he’s super fit, and that’s where he’s he he he can really make this race happen is going uphill. Yeah. And crucially, Conrad as well. Problem for Isa Headley. Is this Isa Headley we’re looking down on right now. She’s got a problem with it. Is it a her dropper post or what’s she doing there? I believe that is Headley and her dropper post. Seems to be all the way. She’s got sealant coming out. I think she’s trying to put air into her rear tire. So, she’s got a puncture. Definitely. I can see. Yeah, there’s definitely CO2 bursting around the edge of the tire. I had about a minute gap on Luan Deon, which is just an incredible performance so far. Let’s hope she can get this fixed as fast as possible. Hold it together. Hold it together. And and her hands will be freezing because the minute you start to release the CO2 from that canister, it is literally like ice in your hand as well. This was the moment she pulled to the side of the road. She’s on the edge of the lago going out on her second lap. But she’s had to stop there. It must have been so soft that she’s needed to add the CO2 to it. So that tire will have been adding its own sealant as she’s riding around. But you can see this is a replay now. And you can see the bursts of CO2 exploding around the edge of the tire. There she goes. Does it look hard enough though, Ollie? Yeah, it looks better. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know, Conrad. A lot of the CO2 that cloud you saw was this. The air that didn’t go in the tire, so some of it went out. Didn’t Here’s Archer Serier. Sorry, Conrad. Here’s Archer Ser. The timing split. He was only 40 seconds behind the top guys. He was in third place. So, that means he’s past Maxim Sha. Oh my goodness me. How much is there of this coming down to the final run? Because Serie is so deadly on that run course. He knows it inside out. It’s where his strength really lies, but it’s not like he’s weak on the bike. Talking of the bike, here we go on that hard tail. Yenil Sllo Milson still not in contact with Felix Fericier. And I’m guessing he’ll want to be ahead of Felix Fisier. Fishier knows he’s coming though. He’ll want to be ahead of him for the technical sections. Felix is doing a really smart thing here. you have kind of a switch back and you can see a little bit further down onto exactly this section that we see right here as we see Sullivan Midaw coming back around 2 minutes back on the front guys still riding a really strong race in fourth place so Felix is just making sure he knows where everybody is that is a sign of an athlete that is in control he understands he has enough energy to think okay where are my competitors how do I win this race what is happening around me if you are on the limit you just follow the wheel in front of you this is Porter Midar If I’m not mistaken, I’m getting better at spotting the different No. Is it Sullivan Mid? I’ve got Steve Andrews behind me. He knows them. He knows the family personally. So that’s Sullivan Midar. I’ve been corrected. Thank you, Steve. So this is where the race is really going to be made. It’s the second lap. Everyone can ride the first lap hard, but the real athletes with endurance, with training, with real preparation, they’re going to do the second lap. That’s where the gaps are made. That’s where time is made. That’s where people who didn’t train enough, don’t have experience, get tired. I have insight. I hope it’s not a red herring that I’ve been fed, but Yenzil does plan to attack on the second lap at those root sections. That is where he wants to make his move. Now, we’ll see. Sadly, on the first lap, nobody was able to ride that section because it’s so incredibly difficult. That might throw a spanner in the works for the for for him, but yeah, this is this is his his race plan. obviously wouldn’t have been planning to be about 40 seconds behind Felix at some point, but let’s see how it plays out. It makes sense because they had no idea what the course looked like this morning with all the rain we had overnight, but now he’s seen the course and he’s probably in his head decided, okay, this section I’m going to ride that section I’m going to run. This is where I can make my move. And he’s obviously physically looks good, so he’s he’s going to use his energy to to try and get away. But he keeps looking around. Felix keeps looking around. He knows Yans Nelson’s coming. I’m sure both of these would gladly lead into the uh Well, actually, here comes Ben Forbes. I wonder when Ben Forbes would start coming through. The Australian here is still in his yellow and green. You can just about see it. He opted for an extra under layer under there, the Aussie. And that doesn’t surprise me, Ollie. I think that’s super smart. Ben was talking to me before this. You know, you want some options, but yeah, staying a little bit warm on this course can make the difference. This is Porter Midar as you as you identified before. But Ben, this is exactly the type of course that suits him. So technical. He has this incredibly interesting perspective when looking at some of these race courses. He ma manages these tiny se segments into what he calls micro segments and he looks at where can I make up half a second within this micro segment. How can I ride it faster than somebody else as we see Duma a little bit further back than maybe we would expect. He’s just outside the top 10 somewhere, isn’t he? Right. I’m going to say this now because we’re watching this the second lap of this 30 km bike course. I think the run today could be even more testing and interesting. In fact, it will be than we’ve seen before. Twofold as we see the hookup now between Yans Miloth Nelson, Yona Miloth Nelson the day now taking over the lead, but only just twofold because they’re going to be even more tired. The rain, the cold weather, the wet, the mud takes a toll on your on your body, on your your your muscles in a way that you just don’t get when it’s dry. That that is going to load on that final on that run. But crucially as well, the run itself is technical. Once they get into the forest, the up and down, it’ll be even muddier than it’s ever been before. And I think we can see that 10k run with uh being very, very interesting to watch indeed. Conrad, you’ve been on a lot of these extra runs as well. It has throughout the the long history now 29 years of of the history of this sport. The runs are always pr pride on being very technical and quite natural as well with logs to climb over fallen trees, rocks, and there’s not very much that’s helpful in there as well. I I think you’ve probably run on some even harder to run courses than we’ve got here. And this is tough. Yeah, for the for the viewers who who’ve never done an exterero before, that 10k run looks very deceptible. I mean on the road if you’re a good athlete you can run low low 30 minutes for 10ks off the bike. But when you come to extra if you run below 40 minutes that’s really really fast. It’s very demanding. Um there’s no flow. Your legs are much more tired after this bike ride than any bike ride you’ll do on the road. It it just absolutely drenches um your your your energy. So running is really tough. Um courses going up ski slopes. I remember walking hands on the knees because you literally cannot run. You just power walk with Steve Larson was chasing me down going up steep uh um ski slopes in uh uh ski slopes in somewhere in the states it was and uh yeah extra always tries to do something crazy. You’re just seeing a bit of insight coming in on the screen there and that was this week. Sandra Mayhoffer herself a former European champion in Extera, a wonderful Extera athlete who’s been uh not racing Extera this season, but has been here in Mulano uh coaching the athlete you’re watching right now, Lan Duboce Duvoan, specifically spotted in the bike park, coaching her, working through some of the technical stuff as well. So Oliver, we will look for some of those improvements as well. We were just being given information that Lan was leading the woman’s race. I wonder whether or not that was due to Isa’s uh Isa’s unfortunate mechanical. I we haven’t seen confirmation of that necessarily visually, so let’s hold off on that. But exactly as you said, Conrad, this a defining feature in my opinion, at least in the modern era of Extera racing of a good runner is somebody who is incredibly strong on the bike because if you come off of a bike f bike gast, you cannot run well. That’s why the best runners are some is somebody like Arur, Yenzil, and Fidics because they are the strongest mountain bikers in the field because they can save a tiny little bit. Doing this hard of an effort doesn’t gas them as opposed if you’re a pure runner somebody. There’s always an in check we say an exception that proves the rule, right? And so there’s one athlete who kind of has is that exception. That’s Anna Zender. Ana Zender maybe not the best in terms of mountain bike skills. She’s currently, I think, sitting in 11th place. Uh, and just to illustrate how hard this race is, she’s 10 and a half minutes back on the front field in the women’s. We expect that to be made up quite a bit, but she’s one of the fastest runners in the field. And but she’s, in my opinion, the only person who’s able to do that as we see Scotty Anderson doing some cool jumps. Exactly. That was the story of my life is I could I could run hard. I could run decent off a bike whether it’s easy or hard. I wasn’t fast. But then um some of the runners that are super super fast um once the bike gets a little bit hard they can’t do that fast run and I think that’s the key with extra you have to be strong all around. Land Voisan the Swiss athlete there who won the short track world cup finale midweek is we believe now leading. We need to turn around though where is he and what on earth has happened to her? We saw the CO2 exploding around the edge of her tire. If what Conrad has said is true, which I believe is right, she’s therefore losing a lot of that air. She’d have wanted to go into the back tire. That was Solen Bilan just behind her. Oh my goodness me. So I wonder I wonder if Isa is still ahead of Lan or if she has now drifted back into third place. But she either way she has ridden an incredibly strong race as we see Solen Bilwan come past the static camera. Solen Bilwan aiming to get on terms with the record of Flora Duffy, the athlete who won four editions of this world championship between 2014 and 2017. Flora Duffy of course had won five anyway, but she was the only one to have won four in total. Is Sloan Duvoan in the lead? We just need to check on the whereabouts of the British athlete Isa Hedley who was riding away with this race until she had that puncture. There’s still a lot of riding to come. I wouldn’t wish punctures on anyone, but there’s a good chance that in both these elite fields, there will be more punches on this second lap. And I have to say, I think those punches are coming in that open section that naughty old Lico Debrun Lubren, sorry, has put together. It’s after this. Here she is. Here she is. Now, where is she? So, she must be in what? Third, Oliver. Yeah, I think I I I believe this is third place. So, looks like Isa has just struggled a little bit on some of that up on some of that uphill section. You can see the back tire. It’s bobbing away, isn’t it? It’s just not. There is enough pressure in there to get a bit of extra grip, but she’s going to be bobbing all over the place on a climb where she should be on rails and absolutely shredding up there too like this woman is doing right now. Landuan, what a what a way to come back to the sport at the end of the season in peak condition. And she is flying this week as well, isn’t she? Now, where’s Grab Müller in the race at the moment? Fourth. Grab Miller seems to be sitting in fourth position. She’s having a really strong bike ride now. Somebody both Anita and um Isa have to be worried about behind them is Barbaros. Barbaria has one of the strongest runs in Extera. Uh and I fear that she may be able to just have a little bit more fatigue resistance as we talked about Conrad to just run these two girls down when they come uh down into the descent or down into T2. However, there’s one big question mark before that and that’s the descent where I think that Sen can make up a little bit of time on Lan and maybe Barbara might lose some. There goes Barbara Riveros with Emma Drew with Riveros out of the saddle. Look at the difference in build between those two. Barbara Riveros, I’m think I’m fairly safe in saying the smallest, the most compact, and probably therefore lightest of the athletes in there. She will be enjoying the long draggy climb because the power to weight ratio comes into play. Comrade, while I still have you here and we watch this, we’re already starting to think about who is going to be the world champion this year. We we’re talking a lot about in your context multiple wins, having won four, uh Flora Duffy having won five and four in a row as well. In amongst all those names though of all the winners we’ve had going back 29 years and maybe even athletes who haven’t won an Exttera World title um what I want to ask you is other than yourself of course who do you rate amongst the men that you race with as being the greatest or the best possibly who didn’t ever win a world title or didn’t win multiple world titles who’s the athlete that you you looked at and thought oh my goodness me you are the complete allrounder other than your good self of That’s uh that’s easy. Um Dan Hugo from South Africa. We we now we call him Dan Duffy. He’s married to Flora Duffy. But um yeah, we raced many years headto-head. It was very fierce, very competitive. Um we have many battles. We had the same strengths. We s more or less the same size, the same weight. Um we rode the same bikes and um the best he ever did was was second at in in Maui at World Championships. But I think he uh he deserved a win. Well, there you go. I’m glad I asked that question. Um well, here we are again on that road climb to the wood cutters cottage. Yenszil Sloth Nielson again. Felix Parisier looking around. What’s his game here? Why does he keep looking around Oliver? I think he just wants to I think he has enough energy. I think he’s not suffering and so he wants to know where is Yens? How does Yens look? Where is Arur? You know, this is a really long uh section where you can see quite far behind you. So even this this gap doesn’t look particularly big. That’s like 3 or 4 seconds. That’s quite quite a big gap if you put it on descent. Now looking behind these athletes, we do not actually see Arur Sier who at the last timing split was we believe 36 seconds behind them. So right now it seems to be a race between the two of them. However, Arur we can never discount his run. We know how strong of an athlete he is. No indeed. Well, one of the things that uh well, one of the things that Yenzil Smith Nelson, two of the things he’s worked on are his swim and run. To be honest, his bike is probably exactly where it’s always been as well. But his run this season, I think, has looked deadly and possibly with the impetus of that world title here, I could see him outrunning Felix Fericier here today. Yeah, in my opinion, Yens showed flashes of the run. I remember in Czech last year, this is a bit of an analytical work I did for him. He was actually faster than Serie, who was broadly considered to be by far the best runner in Extera, and he showed a flash of brilliance. I know then he did uh a block really just focused on the run and in my opinion this season he has really stepped up his game in total not just on the bike because I remember last year everybody talked about Yens as the Uber biker that wasn’t necessarily the case he was on par with our tour and with Felix this year in my opinion he is a step ahead of them there’s the insight on those using hard tails here after Ser after Fericier and Yenzil Nielson opting to go with a lightweight setup as you can see um for Felix Ficier though at the front using the full suspension bike and we saw it being pumped into its full travel on the drop on the short course track exactly the same as we had one lap ago it was pretty much this place as well if I’m not mistaken Yansil Nelson catching Felix Fishier it’s like a replay of the last lap I noticed there Felix Fishier was looking down the valley as well to see who was coming beneath them because the trail snakes along the edge here they are corkcrewing around the edge of the mountain here before going into the next technical section and he deliberately looking down the hill to see who was coming. This was where Felix tried to get in front of Yens to kind of block him. Now Yens is making that move back up to try to move into first place so that he coming into this technical section is able to choose his own lines. If somebody is in front of you and does take the same line as you but doesn’t take it as well, they can always u make you slow and maybe you have to get off and walk as Duvet. It’s a big advantage for if you’re not maybe not as skilled technically to be in front. Exactly. And I think that comes back to the the the choice of the bike. The the the hard tail climbs faster. So whoever gets to the single track first decides the race. So you can have a fast dual suspension bike with big knobbybly tires and so on, but if you can’t get around the guy in front of you, you’re stuck. Comrade, we talked about tires earlier. What would you have gone for on a day like this? Because um Ollie, am I right in saying Yans Mil Nelson has opted for the mud tire at the back and the smoother tread at the front. Some of the others have gone the other way round. What would you go for? I would go with something mud front and rear. You need the traction for the climbing. Um, you need the mud to shed. Um, I don’t think the rolling resistance is such a big issue cuz it’s low speed pretty much. Um, and I would go for a large volume. Seeing that the the mud doesn’t really stick to the tire. A large volume. You can run a really low pressure. So, on the roots, it’ll have more grip. And, um, if Ollie is right, this is where Yensile planned to make his move. Oh, we’ve cut away at just the wrong time there because they’re coming into I think the most the worst of the technical features. It’s probably because we’re using our static camera here to pick up Landu Voisan who is leading this race, the Swiss woman. Now, I must admit I didn’t quite see this coming. Oliver, you said how ripped she looks this week, how fit she is, and how she’s come to this in peak peak condition. We can see she’s wrapped up well warm for the bike course, but she is leading conclusively at the moment. But where is Headley? Isaley just had that flat and apparently I’ve just gotten in inside from course. She is now as we as we saw before in third place. Uh that’s all because of that flat. It’s a really unfortunate thing. But going back to being wrapped up that’s actually a really good point that you make there Jess. Um Lan is really lean. She has a really low fat percentage and so actually warming back up is a really big question for her that she has to contend with as we see probably the leading men back here. Although yeah maybe our maybe our camera bike’s a bit too fast. This is a great shot. This is actually, do you know what? I love this shot because it’s giving us an insight to what it’s really like there in that forest. It has got so much worse compared to when I ran it on what Wednesday morning. It was nowhere near as bad as that. Here comes the three-time world champion. She wants that fourth title, Solen Bilwan. But the moment she is chasing Lan Duvo, and she knows from the short track race on Wednesday just how well Duvo is going. Solen is putting in a big performance here. Um, I think that she will be a little bit further behind than what she would have hoped for. She would have hoped to bring in a gap on Lan from for the for the run because Lan yeah we expect her to be maybe a little bit faster on the run. Obviously anything can anything can change in such a difficult and cold course today. Um any mechanicals as we’ve seen with with Isa Hedley and with Yen can really upset the upset the course. You could look at Yen is he behind his seat he has a a tool bag. So in there he had CO2 and a plug and maybe a tube. So he came prepared for everything. And here we see that attack that that he was talking about. Now he has a tiny gap on Felix. And comrade, what about Felix Fissier using the hydration bladder in the backpack as well? They’ve seen a couple of athletes doing that here. What’s your take on it? I personally I wouldn’t do it. It’s typically this is not a hot race, but typically in a race that’s not even hot. It really heats up your body and it’s very high center of gravity. But it makes sense that you don’t have to let go of the handlebars to drink and you’re not going to lose your bottle. So personally, I wouldn’t do it. mud sticks to it and so on, but he obviously has done it for a reason. I’m sure he’s prepared and done his research. The two French women there surrounded by a Czech athlete and Anetta Grab Müller. There she is back there. We’re looking at Barbara Riveros. Here she has Emma Drew right behind her. D Cru still wearing the glasses. She’s one of the few athletes still wearing her glasses. What a ride being done by Anetta Grab Müller here. Really strong. Unfortunately, we’re not seeing Isa Headley in the top five right now anymore. uh that that mechanicals must have been much worse than what we actually anticipated. Isa has had an incredible first beginning of this race and now it seems to be going back over to maybe who we expected to be at the front. Somebody we’re also missing is Alan Cifford who we talked about at the first at the first lap. She was leading the the the course that was that an overcommitment or does she just struggle on the technical stuff? Now listen, while we’re watching these two, I’ve got another thought in my mind. We’re playing around with the thought that these two are watching each other and wondering about it. I think I’ve got a very good idea what skin suit Felix Fericier was looking for down there and it’s a red one because both of them are thinking right we are now partners in crime. We need to stay away from Arthur Serier. It’s not just about a battle between these two. These two start messing around and playing cat and mouse and trying to beat each other. Serie will just be working his way steadily through. They know that a fit Arur as we know he is this week will outrun both of these on that final run and they’ve got to work together to stay ahead of him and get as big a gap as possible now on the long descent. It’s like the dynamic has been completely switched. It has historically we have always seen Arur City and Felix Verizier work together to try to keep Yens behind. Now Yens is up front and Archur has been dropped. This is something that we are not really used to seeing in exterior racing. Uh and I think it will Yeah, it’s really hard to say what result we’re going to get based on this dynamic. Okay. Um Conrad, we’re going to hand over your mic in just a moment to Steve Andrews who’s here to tell us a little bit more about Rui Doso while we’re preparing ourselves for the final run. So, we’ve kind of prepped ourselves for what’s to come next year. Comrade, for now, thank you very much for your time in our commentary box here. Thank you. so much. Oh, I tell you what, I’m going to ask you one question. Yeah. Who’s going to win? Uh, I think sorry. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. It seems typically he saves a bit for the run. He doesn’t let it all out there on the bike. And I think on the run in the past, he’s just done some phen phenomenal performances. And then the woman Luan, I think she looks solid. She looks relaxed. She’s within herself. She’s done it many times. There you go folks, you’ve heard it from uh the greatest male extera athlete of all time, Conrad Stalk, sat alongside me. Thank you very much, mate. It’s been our honor to have you with us in here. And do jump back on as well in a little bit if you want to. Enjoy your day. Sure. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Good luck. Thank you. In a moment, I’ll bring in Steve Andrews so we can have a little bit of a chat about what is upcoming next year. Don’t worry, we won’t get too far ahead of ourselves cuz we’re into a really, really tricky climb here. And this is Yenl Nelson trying to turn it on again. There’s what Conrad was talking about there, which was the the use of that hard tail. And and as he’s popping his way over those those roots, he’ll be just able to kick in that back wheel. No suspension clicking its way through there. Our camera bike operator. Oh, look at that. There is that fantastic lake. This is the the Pradle Lake right of I’m so glad we’ve now got the drone up there. This is one of my favorite places in the Doommites. It’s a stunningly beautiful bluey green lake, white slate and stone going underneath it. They take in a loop all the way around it. I ran round there at about4 7 on Wednesday morning and it was in thick cloud. You couldn’t see the lake. I actually promised my my kids I would ring them and show them the lake. I got up there. I said, “Trust me, the lake is here. It looks amazing. You just can’t see it cuz you’re in the middle of a whacking great cloud.” They’re at about 1,600 m of elevation here, high up in the Doommites and they are just about to go into the most fun bit. Here comes the wall ride. Check it out. Let’s see how high they go around here. I’m so glad we got the drone up for this. There they go. This is the top of the Paganella bike course which people come from all over the world to come and ride here in the Doommites and take in these trails. We’re only allowing the Extera athletes to have a little bit of fun and they think they will have fun there, those too, because this is the jumpy swoopy bit with the tight BMS, man-made trails, but it’s the only part of the course that is like this. I really hope we get a follow along on Vist Descent because I have a feeling it’s going to be some cracking footage. But as you mentioned, batsh shot is also one of my favorites. We have it every year in here in the exter world championships. However, that part of the course is not only important for its beauty. It is important because these athletes get to have a look around and see where everybody else is sitting. Here we see Lan Deon still riding herself over these roots. This is a really difficult section where maybe we could potentially see Solo and come back to her. That she is doing this is the most difficult climb. How on earth she’s managing to keep it going over there is amazing. Right, here goes Arthur Serio. Is it? Who have we got here? Sorry. Coming around there. Yes, it is. It’s Arthur Seriad, the three-time world champion. He’s done the wall ride low, keeping everything sensible. Just as Conrad was saying, he holds a little bit back. Not taking risks. Definitely not. We won’t see him crossing up and taking big air, will we? He’ll just want to get down, get his trainers on, and start that trail run. Here comes one of the drops. Landuan riding this. I ran down this mostly on my bottom midweek. This is quite some ride by her. She has got everything dialed. Ollie, I would like to say that I rode down this on my bike, but I also ran down this. I did not. Softy, what’s wrong with you? Get out. Get out of the commentary. I did not have a good time riding down this. I was unclipped trying to, you know, baby my my way down this descent, but it’s Yeah, exactly. These these athletes make it look so easy. If any of you sitting at home were here, look at some of these. Here we go. This is going to be good. We are don’t have no clue who we’re following down here at all, by the way. It is Felix. Yeah, it’s Felix Parisier. Oh, even he crosses and gets a little bit of air in there. Our camera motor bike. Our camera, not motorbike. Was it a drone? That was a drone. That’s the only way you can follow. These guys are so fast. Oh my goodness me. I was going to say they’re getting close, right? This is Max Sha. He’s up at the top of the lake as well. Fourth place. Uh 2 and 12 minutes down. Not again. He was fourth in both the short track and the full distance last year here. But listen, he’s animated the race. He pulled at the beginning. He was he was making decisive moves. And to just to mention the gap to Sira at this point is 1 minute. I tell you what, I you will not see a more exciting triathlon anywhere in the world this year. I’m not paid to say that. I’m telling you the truth and the way we’re bringing it to you with the brilliant coverage here from MV. Now, we’ve had four years now of perfecting the art of how to capture what’s going on in these trails up in the Doommites. And boy, have our team at Piper Vision got it absolutely spot on today. Look at this. This is just completely stunning here. Here he pops it. Yeah, just beautiful. This is, you know, this is exactly what Exttera is. It’s high performance racing while also having a little bit of fun, right? I mentioned it. Sat alongside me here, I have Steve Andrews, who is in charge of uh Extera right the way across the Americas. Steve, first of all, let me just say this to you. You’ve got something to live up to here, boy. I think you are you sitting there nervously thinking, “Oh my goodness me, we’ve got to live up to this.” I am not necessarily nervous. I’m excited to move forward, you know, and I will say that yes, uh, Riyodoso is not Vano on these trails, but where we’re coming back into the USA for the 30th year celebrating history, heritage, culture, we’re bringing extra to Riodoso and again, they’ll have their own experience to say to live up to what we’re seeing today. Who knows? But this is absolutely amazing. So, right now, let’s live in the moment. Oh, absolutely. And and I I said that in a jokey way. I know you did. I’m not getting defensive by any means. I don’t want to pop up. All right. I know what you Americans are like. Someone get him out of here. No, but Steve, Steve, what a wonderful moment to be sat here though with Conrad Stalk sitting there as well who’s seen all that opening era right the way through the long history of Xtera to be here in Europe and to be then inviting you to come and sit with us because you are responsible for taking it back to America now completely different location in New Mexico. And um I have one question for you now. Will it be as muddy as this, Steve? I would hope it would not be. I can’t say with the certainty, but what I will say is that uh the course, the experience will be world class. Well, you were on the ground at Oak Mountain, I presume, of course, this this summer, and I have to say the conditions weren’t far off this. They were not. You know, the trail systems there, you know, are created well. They drain well, but yeah, the mud was there. Okay, so now let’s focus on Yanza Miloth Milson who is having problems on this descent, isn’t he, Oliver? Yeah, he’s having a bit of problems. I do not remember whether or not he actually led into the descent or if he’s in front of Felix, but there seems to be daylight in front of him and behind him given that the that the bike was actually able to stop. Um I wonder this is one of the places in the entire course where he’s going to struggle a little bit because of the choice of bike. um just due to its nature, a hard track is just a a hard tail bike is just never going to be able to um reach the same speeds as as a full suspension like somebody like Maxim here is rocking. Yeah, he is. Maxim Shane absolutely flying. I have been so impressed with Landuan there. Hand down on the ground. This is one of those technical features as well. Look at that. The rocks in the middle, natural rocks from the edge of the mountain here in the Doommites. the route that have been ripped back by people out enjoying the trails all summer, all autumn, and now here we are in some of the worst conditions as well. And Voyan is probably going to have to run to the top of that next section. We now start the natural descent down back into Mulano and it is all downhill now for Yenzil Sloth Milson. This is really technical and tough down here. This isn’t our drone, I don’t think. I think this is our ebiker possibly following him. I ran this section midwig and I tell you, I was all over the place in my trail shoes. That’s probably the worst of it. He is not far from exiting the bottom here. He goes back onto the road for a little bit and then he’s got a really narrow quite rocky descent to spill him out into the streets of Mulvaneo. It will not be long before Yenzil Sloth Nelson is down here and ready to start his run which he has improved this year. Here we have Sullivan Mid. I am just looking desperately trying to see if anybody is ahead of Yenzil. He seems to be struggling a little bit although he is looking behind him. So maybe yeah, he’s just indicating his back wheel. He must have had a pinch plat. Uh so in that in that case we would expect Felix to come in first. Uh and that there he is. He is leading ver I was getting ahead of myself there. Thank you Ollie for correcting it. So the silver medalist from the last two years stretching out a little bit there I think. Just stretching out his back. He is getting himself ready for the run. He’s onto the streets of Mulano right now. And dare I say it, I haven’t said this yet. It stopped raining and I think I saw some brightness in the sky that was burning in a kind of central orb. I’m not sure what that is, but it was there. I’ve managed to take off one of my five layers. So, I also am feeling fantastic. I’m still wrapped up like I’m I’m mummified over here. Anyway, we’re looking further up the descent now. I think we have to make the point. And I think this is important. Somebody should make the point to Yens. Yens needs to understand, okay, I’ve had a bad race. I haven’t done what I wanted to do. I haven’t made the difference on the bike. I’ve had unfortunate events happen. I’ve had a pinch flat, but I am near the front. I’m maybe 30 seconds down. Anything can happen. This race is completely open and I need to focus in on this run and leave everything behind me. That’s something that can be really defining within a race. Exactly as to that head space that the athlete is in. My goodness me, we’re so close to starting the run. Felix Fericier on his way to transition very, very quickly. And it is tough. This bit down through the town is underrated. There’s me big up the roots and what have you. Whether it’s wet or dry or anything, this urban downhill is really tough. And let me tell you something, I would not want to be riding it on a flat rear tire. Well, not at least when it’s wet as well. That’s on kind of clinky flat cobbles there that are shiny. The joins between the the central reservation there as well really causing problems. And Yans Milo Nelson won’t be holding down. Now this must be about a 30 secondond gap that he’s registering to Felix. So both on both of the descent he has lost time which is just not something that Yens we would see Yens usually do. Um I don’t think it’s just down to the choice of bike. It must be a rear puncture. Although here he seems to be holding it up pretty well so far. Yeah, but he’s not holding back is he? We’ve just seen him kick the back wheel out twice there. He’s locked up a little bit. A little bit of natural slide. All the kind of stuff that Yenzil Sloth Milson will be very very comfortable with. This is Felix Ferici though who’s going to get that he’s going to get that rush of adrenaline as he comes into transition, not least when he runs out of transition. This run course is now running the opposite way around to the first time it was used. It used to be along the beach, then through the technical features in the forest, and then the run back along the long straight flat trail road. Instead though, now they’ve got a trail road in which to get into their rhythm, and the technical stuff comes later. But I ran last night for the first time ever, the bit that goes over the waterfall, and I was really surprised how tough that is. That is a hard hard climb on the run. This this this run is really kind of again in two halves. You have a really really fast part and you have a really technical part where we saw last year Arur Seriet make the difference. Um I would say it’s hard to split the the guys on this. So really anything can happen in this in this race. Watch the drop jump here because we saw some very very tired bodies coming over it. Thankfully now Felix Fericier will not take any risks. We all love a bit of jeopardy in a race. We love to see changes and stuff happen but no one wishes any bad luck on any of these athletes and specifically not now. We want them all to get down the mountain into transition and for it to come down to the run. We don’t want any problems. Yenel, this is probably a 15-second gap that he’s registering at the moment towards uh towards Felix. This is anything but over. His coach is going to be there. He needs to communicate that information. Let him know this race is open now. You need to focus on this run. Do you think what’s he giving away facially there? Because today there the puffing out of the cheeks. I think he was indicating that he’s not feeling great. Yens Yen has a very peculiar style of racing. He does. He pulls a lot of faces. Uh he runs kind of like a T-Rex with his hands with his with his hands lifted above. No, it’s a velociraptor, isn’t it? It’s really fast. I mean, he has a 64-minute half marathon. I I I’m the last person who should criticize it, but he just pulls some faces and pulls some arms. For those of you who maybe don’t follow Oliver Tand on on socials, you should. He did some great interviews with these guys last night and got some really teased out some quite nice nitbits of tip tip bits, I should say, of information from them. But your interview with Yans Miloth Nelson was fascinating. He’s a really interesting guy and he was also notably Am I allowed to reveal this? You put I haven’t I haven’t put it out, but you are allowed to feel it. The the thing that’s interesting to reveal was that he was one of the few people you interviewed that when he when you asked him who was going to win, he straight said me. Yeah. No, not me. Just to be clear, not me cuz I’m not racing. But of course, if I was here, actually, here we have Arusier. I think he’ll probably be about another counting back in my opinion, that’s a minute and a half. Can he do it? Can he do that on the run? That’s a big gap. But yeah, I I talked to all of the top five athletes. All of them, there was a difference in the demeanor that they said it. Uh, all of them said, “I think I’m going to win.” Uh, but surprisingly, Yenzil said he was most worried about Arur and Arur said he was most worried about Yenzil. I asked him, you have to say one name, otherwise you are not allowed to, you know, participate in the video. I I I put strict rules as here we see this T2 again going to be crucial. Yenz needs to not mess up this backpack off for Felix Fisier. Helmet off last, which of course what he has to do. He needs to keep his transition area tidy. Everything he’s used on the bike has to go back in that box. If it doesn’t, he will likely get a 30-cond penalty. That’s the same for every athlete. And the judges, the the the the Fry jury are in there watching this very carefully. There is a penalty box on the run. We don’t want to see anyone in there, Ollie. Do we? Exactly. And we we just saw there are no socks for Felix. So, even though he opted for the hydration bladder, he’s not wearing socks. Just kind of imagine those. Look at Yenzil’s, you know, feet. They’re completely muddy. And Yens really needs to speed up this transition. This is one of his biggest weaknesses. This is some a place where he consistently loses time to the other athletes. He’s wearing the hookon X2s, I believe, for any of you guys interested. And come on, Y. Get that foot on. The hands will be freezing cold at this stage. He’s had a long descent down there. Yes, he’s gripping the bars, but that just squeezes the blood out of the hand as well. So, might not be able to feel absolutely everything in there either. And not just the fingers, but the toes as well. Those are really important. You kind of feel the way the the shoe molds around your foot. And it can be really difficult if you can’t feel your toes. Okay, while we watch Felix Vericier running out, he is now running into the smooth, fast bit of the run. We’re nowhere near the technical stuff yet, while we’re watching this as well, Steve Andrew, while I’ve got you alongside me, tell us what kind of trails these very athletes have to look forward to in Ruidoso next year. They’re going to be actually high mountain trails obviously in the uh uh the mountains near Riodoso. They are winding. They are actually there’s a lot of steep climbs, loose rock in some places. fairly similar to what we have here. Uh but there’s a lot of diverse train where there’s ups, downs, not just gradual climbs like we have here. There’s a lot of descending and climbs. So, it’s going to challenge everybody’s ability to not just get in cadence, but when you’re biking, running, you know, and take them out of that. So, it’s consistency. It’s learning understanding the trails before we get there. And then, uh pre-writing to make sure that they’re understanding what they’re facing. I’ve just seen Arthur Serier, three-time world champion, pull on his Ultra Run shoes. They are zero drop shoes, those I’ve run in them for a long, long time. Quite unusual. Just to explain what that means by people, they’re not built up at the back. They are flat, but cushioned. I’m not attached to Altra anymore, but they I have run in them. Ultra are some of the most comfortable shoes actually. Okay, again, I’m not sponsored, but I find the the shoes really to be very comfortable. I know that our tour has been working with Altra and I believe that he debuted one of their prototype shoes here a couple years ago which was their first carbon plate shoe. I’m sure he’ll be rocking that again. Um except the only difference being that it’s I don’t know if it’s I think it may be publicly available now the shoe to for commercial you know purchase but I believe that it actually had some uh some spikes on on the bottom of it or some lugs at least and it wasn’t just a pure trail shoe a pure road shoe like what you’d see elsewhere. Yeah, they are a real trail running uh specialist. I must I’ll disclose I did used to be sponsored by Ultra and but I will tell you there was a good reason for it because I have big wide flat slabs of feet and I needed to find a shoe that was wide enough that allowed my toes to spllay and they definitely did that. Mr. Fourth place, what place is he in right now? Fourth place. That’ll be fourth then. Come on, Max Shanny. We can’t have this two years in a row. Fourth in the short track last year. He was fifth in the short track this year. I thought by that he’d broken his duck but gone the wrong way. And here he is in fourth again, the Frenchman. Max is one of my favorite athletes. He’s just so consistent. He doesn’t have a weakness. He’s good on the swim. He’s good on the bike. He’s good on the run. And in my opinion, he’s first, but the first of the humans. I don’t think Yenzil Arur and Felix Fiz qualify as the humans. They are the uber athletes. And you know, um, Maxim is just so strong, but just unfortunately he misses that little tiny percentage point to make him this, you know, world beater. Now we get to talking of world beaters. Talking of nonhumans, let’s see the first of the nonhumans. Felix Fericier striding out. My goodness me, he looks good. I think he looks really good. Look, he looks really strong. This is Let’s not draw too many conclusions. Kind of opening up out of transition can be really tricky. So, just getting that getting that turnover is really important. Opening up those hips as well. It’s a completely different movement to what you see on the bike. Um, somebody like Solen Birwan, in my opinion, sometimes has to work herself into some of these races. So, let’s see if any of the other guys struggle. Felix has got our camera bike alongside him here. Here we go. Anyone who hasn’t though, who’s on this trail, it’s a very lonely place. It’s quiet up there. It’s away from all the the hustle and bustle of the town. It’s non-technical. Going through their heads right now will be a little bit of a flashback of what’s happened during the race, where they are, thinking about pacing, get on top of your breathing, get into the rhythm. They’ll be feeling if there’s any signs of any cramp coming on. Once they’ve gone over the waterfall, they have two very steep downhills. If you’ve got any indication of cramping going on in your quads, that’s where it will come on. Sullivan Midar in fifth place. This is an unbelievable Sullivan. Come on, Sullivan. Steve, I saw you at the finish line when Sullivan Midar won the short track last year. I’m sure it was the same this year. You are completely impartial, of course, but an American athlete, a youngster whose family you know well. Um, he’s come on another level again this year, hasn’t he? He’s come on another level and it’s a beautiful thing about Sulvin. He’s a good role model to the upcoming youth in the US and in North America and people are looking up to him and you know following in his father’s footsteps and so yes very happy. Well, he’s no longer following in his father’s. This time last year, he was following in his father’s footsteps cuz his dad Josiah who’s up only one year younger than me. Um finished what? Fifth and Porter and Sullivan were further down. But this time round, Sally Midar at the age of what is he now? Nearly 21. 21. Yeah. Just come on again. That next level. Oh, he’s there. And uh leading the family as per se. Oh my goodness me. Look at these faces. They are they’ve come out of what is like an absolute mud bath out there. Oie. That’s Nicholas Dur. He’s he’s a really strong biker and runner. Uh and alongside Kieran Mcfersonson. Kieran is also one of the fastest runners. I would like to point viewers attention. We just saw Felix FZ go up into the technical uphill section. Felix, in my opinion, there is a difference between Yens and Felix. Yen likes a faster course where you have more turnover. Felix likes a harder course where you have to go up. So in the lower speeds, that’s where he’s better. We saw a fantastic battle between the two of them. In the Czech Republic, Felix was dominating Yens on the uphills while Yens had this faster turnover speed on the downhills and on the flat sections where he would go and itch back ahead of Felix. Felix ended up winning that race, but it was an awesome battle for the two of them. Yeah, we might not see them for a while because the trail that Felix Fericia has just gone up into, there is only space for in fact in places, dare I say it, there’s only actually place for you to step one foot in front of the other really. It’s it’s a real gully the climb over the top of the waterfall. The view down from it is stunning. They won’t be looking at any of that right now. We are watching the three-time world champion, the defending champion here, Arthur Serier. We’d expect him to have the fastest run split of those three. He’s now going into that technical gully climb as well. This is really hard. When I ran that last night, I tried to run it about 3/4 of I’m just going to start walking here because it was way too hard. And I was down to having hands on the knees, too. Yeah, it’s a really, really difficult and really steep section. Uh similar. I wouldn’t say maybe a little bit steeper than here what we see Land Deon. uh riding as she comes off the bike again. Another one of these uphill sections as well for the Swiss athlete Landuana. Look, she is walking. This is getting grippy hard in here right now for the leader in this race. You know this I I think that these sorts of small mistakes just accumulate. You know, they they play on your mental. You know, you even though you’re right, you’re leading the race, you’re worried. Oh, Yen’s rot with a small slip up there. Yeah, it’s going to happen. He won’t be the only one doing that today. He’s got kind of lightly lugged trail shoes on there, but it should be enough to give grip. And it looks like it’s starting to rain again. Jess, just in that picture where where we saw Yenzeroth, maybe it was just uh shaking some water off of him, but I think it was it was raining a little bit. This look at this. Landuan is having to walk the whole of this. There’s no weakening here. It’s just the toll of what happens in next era. This is the second lap of this 30k bike course. Now she starts to run again just a little bit. If anyone’s wondering what the difference is between running and walking, at some point in your foot stride, you are entirely off the ground when you’re running. Not everyone knows that, you know, Steve, I’m full of all sorts of rubbish. You know what? I am amazed. Your rubbish is amazing. Thank you for sharing. Well, thank you guys. Right. Ask me. I’m not in America next year. Oh. Um, so we we’ve ascertained that the weather shouldn’t be as bad next year on those trails. What about the lake they’re swimming in as well? Because we had what um what was the temperature in the lake here today? 17° 10° of air temperature. Any chance of a duathlon? No, not the water temps. We have 10 uh 10ear history that they pull these Rudoso pull. We ask for the numbers. They go back get the records from us. Average uh air temperature is typically 22 degrees. Uh water temp I’ll say in Fahrenheit it’s around 67 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. And so the water will be very uh it will be perfect for racing. Very nice indeed. I I hope. But I don’t want to guarantee anything, but that’s historical. I don’t want to say, “Hey, Steve, you said on there.” I mean, you did say on I don’t remember anything, by the way. Steve, are you glad you’re lucky I remember your name? But Oliver next to me, he is like a mental. He’s less than half my age. He’s got a brain that’s unrined by the great wider world like mine. And he’s remembering all of this. Trust me, he is a statician and he’s brilliant at what he does. So Oliver, thank you for being on. On behalf of Extera, welcome to the family and thank you for joining Jez. It’s extremely harrowing to be here. Thank you. You’ve amazed me with all those information and all your stats. It’s mindblowing. Just just to be clear, you need to get out more though. Yeah, I think I do. Yeah, I’m glad you said that. Yeah. Well, you know, I was sitting I was sitting at home in my hotel room doing my little graphs yesterday. I was like, you know what? This may be too much. Like, Oliver, how old are you? Yeah. Oliver, how old are you? 23. There we go. Exactly. You see, my kids My kids are older than you. He’s Listen, you better be getting back to It’s nearly your bedtime. All right, let’s focus on the race. Let’s race, guys. There’s Lan, right? So, she’s going around the lake at the top, the proud of the lake for the final time. Even she maybe is having a look across at its beautiful bluey green waters. No, she’s not. She’s looking to see if she can see the whereabouts of the chase. What are the gaps we think in this race at the moment? I think Sen will maybe be about a minute, but it depends on how how well she’s done that that uphill section. Here we see Sullivan Midar um just behind I think in fifth place running really well. Yen now the gap to him seems to have widened. It’s 49 seconds. um between him and Felix Frizzier at the first split on the run. I’ll remind everyone this is a twolap run course just as everything is two laps today. Lando Voan has done the wall ride of that slatted BM already and she’s into the whoopy swoopy section of the the man-made part of the bike track. We’ve got I think one of our camera bikes but just behind her so we should be able to pick her up at some point. This is the downhill bit which I think is really tough. This is Yenzil Sloth Nelson. Watch him going down here. very very steep down here and it’s hard packed concrete as well and it seems like Archer is just about uh what is that 20 seconds right behind him that’s really a very small gap so anything can happen we saw this last year Felix led the race actually out in the first run lap but then Arthur clawed him back so let’s not discount any of these guys not least because they’ve got one more whole lap to come as well this is the man who’s used the run the final the last three years to dominate this extera World Championship. I think we can safely say right now this is the best challenge he’s been so far. This is the biggest challenge he has threatened towards that four in a row record that no one has done before. Even the great Conrad Stalks who stands behind me never in a row like that. That consistency is quite remarkable on this course. And we now have information on uh on Sen. Solen is a minute and 15 seconds behind uh Lan at the time split up at the lake. Yeah, we’re following our camera bike now down that the built part of the trail center here at Paganella. I love these shots. You really are at home, wherever you’re sitting, wherever you’re watching this around the world. Maybe you’re sat on the sofa, you’ve got a coffee in your hand, you got your feet up even watching this, follow this trail as you come down it. Yeah, this is I honestly I feel for the age groupers who are going to have to race this after the after the elites have done two laps on this course already. It’s just going to be completely muddy. It’s obviously a good thing that the age groupers weren’t let go at the same time. We’ve I remember that’s you know imagine some of the the elite women as we see here Lan just shredding this shredding this descent. You know they just go faster than than a lot of these men and so it’s really good that they have open trails in front of them. We’ve just seen the bear sign up there warning people reminding people of how to behave because there are bears up in these woods. Something that the great caveman Conrad Stalks would probably not have a he probably bite the head off a bear as he rode, you know, as he rode past just for extra energy. But I’d be a little bit nervous, I must admit. I did have a look for them when I was up there. I didn’t see any other than that wooden bear, which I think was all right. Um, there there is a small bear that’s uh in third place right now in the in the women’s field. That’s Barbaros. Uh, Barb barbaros, you mean? Here. Here we see uh her and that’s Anetta in front of her. So, I don’t know why Anetta isn’t on the lifetiming, but Barbaro was 2 and 1/2 minutes behind Lan, therefore another minute 15 behind Sen. Uh she seems to be competing to for third place, but again I don’t know whether or not that was actually Anatager Soldati and whether or not she was uh yeah riding with her. Right, there’s the drink station for Matt Chennai who is in fourth. He strides out nicely down that downhill and I I’ll just repeat it. I think this is a really tough part of the run that it’s so fast and hard. There’s nothing forgiving under the ground. It’s kind of kind of uh graduated slatted concrete down there. He’s about to turn right and go into a bit of the course that this year we will not be able to show you because it is just too technical to get anything in there. No drone, no camera, motorbike or anything. And unfortunately within the team, we don’t have anyone fast enough to run with a camera through there without toting themselves into a tree. We should get you to run it. I can’t do I can’t do everything. I’d be all right through there. I’m quite good on that sort of stuff, but not when I’m holding a camera. And it’s not particularly ankle friendly, is it? Not really. No, it’s an ankle nightmare basically through there. And it’s and it’s of course it’s off camber because it’s sloping down to the to the lake itself. Is there all the way along that left hand camber? Right, here comes Solen Bil one. She looks like she’s shredding. What position is she in? Reminder, Sie, she’s in second position about a minute 15 behind Lan who is leading the race at this point. Can she do it? Can she close up that gap? Because we saw how well Landu Vois was running in the uh the short track race there. She is not holding back on this descent. Sen Bwan, I think Sen doesn’t need need to just look ahead of her. I think she needs to also maybe look a little bit behind her. Barbara has a really strong run and we don’t know how Sen’s going to run. Again, I’ll reiterate, she has had a foot injury and she hasn’t had a good run this year at an extern. She has had good runs on the road. She’s obviously a class athlete. She’s one of the best in the world to ever do it, if not the best, in my opinion, the best. Um, but yeah, it’s she’s she’s been injured and so so it can be quite hard to get form right every time. Do you know I’m I’m going to I’m not I’m annoyed at myself for not mentioning this sooner. While we watch Sain Bilwan there, I’m going to just pay a bit of a credit to an athlete who should have been here today and quite possibly could have even been in the lead right now in that elite women’s race and that is Alise Pac. Alise, I’m pretty certain you’ll be watching this. All we want to say to you is get well. Get back at it. You should have been here. You know you should have been here. We know you should have been here. We look forward to seeing you return to the sport. There’s a woman who should have won the World Cup this year. Her own teammate Martito knew it. She paid tribute to her on the podium this week as well, but I’m just going to say it now during our broadcast. Alise Patches, get well. We look forward to welcoming you back to Xera. Crash for Loan Duvoan as well at this point. We’ll come back to that point in a moment, but that’s the first time we’ve seen a for for Duvoan there. And she can’t get her her leg over the bike. We’ve seen how difficult this bike course has been. We’re going to see that moment again, Ollie. Yeah, and it’s it can be even more difficult when somebody’s riding behind her. This is Bart Kimmans just riding uh one of the men and Yeah. every this this can so anything can happen on this course. Well, I I guarantee you what we’ve just seen there, I hate to say it, is happening all the way down the field and will be happening all afternoon for the age groupers as well. This course is testing every part of the off-road triathletes as well. We’re now following Duvoan again. She needs to get back on top of things. She’s still got the dropper post down at the moment. Exactly. But she Yeah, once once you make a mistake, it’s so easy to make another. You’re a little rattled. It’s hard to get that back into the flow of things. Anything can happen. That’s where you are most susceptible into another mistake. Oh my goodness me. The contrast between these women dealing with the end of the technical descent here and the men who are already well into their strides on the first lap of the run course. It is like two different sports. Funny that because it is two different sports. They just come together in Exera in this way. My goodness me. All these worldass athletes are spread right the way across the the Doommites as they stretch up from Lake Meno here in Italy. I really wish we had a camera on Sen right now. Solen would be just showing us how to boss these trails. Solen is one of the most gifted uh descenders uh in the field. Oh, another mistake. This is not going well for Landu Voan here. And she’s off. I think she’s even going to think about walking this bit here. She’s rattled. You said she’s rattled. She will be dripping time here to Solain Bilwan. This is exactly how these mistakes creep in. And somebody who you just mentioned, Alise Patz is such a good mountain biker. She she raced on the World Cup and of the mountain bike. She is so good. And that’s the level that a lot of these women are at. And sometimes that’s just, you know, when you come in from the road like Lan has, you can these mistakes, you know, creep in. It’s really hard to ride down this course. I couldn’t do it. I would probably be running at this point. It’s this this descent is nasty. Really nasty. It wouldn’t be out of place in certain sections of a World Cup downhill race. And I mean that. It’s that bad. Uh yes, there’s no enormous rock gardens, but it is a natural trail. Yeah, there’s a bit of a burm there, but actually a lot of it has been chosen by Nicola Lab Brun because it it lends itself to what makes Extera unique. You’re riding a lot of very natural trails, not heavily reliant on man-made trails like we see in a lot of mountain biking nowadays. Really nice of uh Elite Man right there just leaving some room for for Lan. I think that’s really professional and really awesome. Doesn’t really cost you anything. It’s 5 seconds, but it’s really respectful. She is worried though because I’m not entirely sure she knew that she had the camera motorbike behind her. She was looking over her shoulder to see who it is, which means that the errors she’s had is putting a little bit of seed of doubt into her mind. Of course, that could be flipped and used the other way to say that she’s going to be kicking on a little bit because she thinks they’re coming at her. Exactly. And now we have two important things happening. Lan is going into that really technical section just off of the left of the road. And here we have Felix coming into his second lap. He’s just going to come onto the beach here. And we’re going to probably see him in a couple minutes time. 10k. Just a 10k run. Easy. Just another 6k to go or so. Right. But but it is that that’s the amazing thing is Steve. So much happened. So much has just happened in that 5k. He’s not even completed the whole 5k yet, Felix Fericier. And he’s got to go back to the waterfall. He’s got to go back to all those rocks and trees he’s clambered over that we’ve not just seen actually. What does that do to your mind knowing that you just raced that you got to go back and do that? So very encouraging. Absolutely. Well, he’s on to probably one of the nicest parts of the run course here along the edge of the beach. She’s going past the the campsite where lots of the the age group athletes who are competing have stayed this week in the campsite there alongside Lake Mulvano. Uh this drone that’s shooting this is probably hovering over the lake itself. Watching him running back towards transition. He’ll snake his way around the edge of it around the edge of the pump track and the kids playground in there. He won’t have any time to take that in and enjoy it though because he’ll be heading back out onto the higher road to get back to the waterfall. Are you suggesting that he should enjoy the playground? Oh, there’s a little bit of a slip there coming off the sand too. just actually ever so slightly turned his ankle. Felix, keep it together. I mean, I am impartial. I want all of these athletes to do well here today. But let’s remind ourselves, this is a guy who’s won the World Cup now a number of times. He’s won it again this year, but he’s been second here the last two years, hasn’t he? In these World Championships, there was ever someone who’s worked to get to that next step. This is the man in front of us right now. I completely agree. I think all of these guys really deserve it. They work so hard. And now we can see the pain face coming out from Felix as he just has to, you know, this doesn’t look like a particularly difficult feature, but I can I guarantee you after a race like this, it completely kills your legs. You want to walk up that so bad, but you have to work so hard to keep running. Just to remind everyone, the last two years we’ve had exactly the same podium. Arthur Ser, Yenzil Sloth Nelson silver, and this man Felix Fericier in third. Sorry, it’s the other way around. Other way around. Felix Paris in second. Of course, I’ve just said that. And Yenzil Sloth Nelson in bronze. The same podium the last two years running. Well, we still have the same athletes in play, but Ser now in third. Yenzil Sloth Nelson in second and Felix Fericier leading. Will it stay like that? Uh, I know my assistant, well, assistant stat. What am I talking about? You are the stat. He sat next to me. And Oliver Tundra is going to tell me what the splits are as they come through here this time to see what the gaps are between these athletes and who is making up time. He’s got a virtual, you know, when when Oliver opens his mouth, he has a he has a spreadsheet being printed down his tongue. That’s how he operates. Give me some stats, man. Tell me. Y is 70 seconds behind Phil, right? Is that it? Yeah, that’s it. That’s that’s about that’s about all I have. No, but just to just to illustrate the the difficulty of this race, the the fourth place is right now about 5 minutes back. Ooh, as we see a little slip up from Yenzil, but this this the top three are quite close together. About 100 seconds and 70 seconds between them, but fourth four minutes. That’s a huge gap. Yeah. Well, yeah, but it’s M Shane again. Hold it together, Yan. He’s shaking his head as well. There’s I mean, in all these athletes, there’s a sense of it is raining again now, isn’t it? There’s a sense of let’s just get it done. I’ve got to get through this. It has been brutal today. 1 minute 10 seconds back. Yenzimil Sloth Milson Felix Fericier has a gold medal right there dangling in front of him. It’s really just he is chasing it like the carrot, the proverbial carrot in front. Look at the eyes of Landu Voisan as well. She is locked on. Yeah, she’s completely locked in and and even the body language between Yenzil and Felix. Felix was attacking trying to get away from everybody. Yen seemed to be a tiny little bit defeated. I don’t know if he’s not had the opportunity to get over what happened to him on the run, but here we have Solen Bilo. That’s about a 20 second gap. This race is wide open. Oh my goodness me. So she she has used that descent so wisely while we were concentrating on Felix Fericier running. She has been eating up the gap so Bill one and she is let’s remind ourselves aiming to get level with Florafius the only woman to have won four and four in a row as well. Can she catch Len Duvoan? I don’t want to sound like I’m willing her to because Duvoan has earned this today. She deserves this. She’s in incredible form. No, but Sen has also worked really hard right behind her as we see Doug Hall completely covered in mud. He’s just walked back past our commentary tent, but Sen has she’s kind of put in a a performance in the shadows, if you will. She hasn’t been on camera all the time because she hasn’t been the leading woman, but she has worked really hard to keep this close and we we’re going to see a really good battle on the run, I feel like. And crucially, she’s been making up time in the really technical bits and we know how good she is on the run. You’ve mentioned a foot injury though, Ollie. I don’t know too much about that. I’m sure you do as well. These are not the conditions to be running with a foot injury. Do you know anything about its nature? No, we I don’t think Sen knows anything about its nature. Uh she just couldn’t run one day and and then couldn’t walk the other. Uh but that was a couple weeks ago. And so I’m hoping that everybody’s healthy now and can kind of put in a good performance. But it also limits the amount of training you’re able to do as we see uh Archer Seier trying to run his back his way back into this race. I believe this is Elliot Labour being passed by Felix here. Yes. So Felix Vericier packing picking up athletes who are out on the first lap of their run. We’ll say very much thank you to Steve Andrews. He’s off to the finish now as well to catch the athletes coming in. Thank you very much Steve. We’ll probably get a chance to chat with Steve again tomorrow during the coverage of the Youth and Junior World Championships which are on Sunday. And we also wave goodbye to Conrad Stalks who is also off to the finish. Thank you you guys. Hey, I tell you what, Ollie, what a what a wonderful opportunity to share the uh the commentary box with them and to have Conrad in here. I mean, it is extra, not just royalty, beyond royalty. As you say, those guys bring so much insight, but let’s focus in on this battle right here. We have both of the top women in T2. Anything can happen here. I These girls are right next to each other. This race is completely open. Let’s see who has a better transition. Is me. I can’t believe what we’re seeing here. She looked up and she looked into the eyes of Solen Bilwan. They were both stood still looking into each other’s eyes. If you ever wanted to see a face off between two athletes who both want to become world champion, Landu Voan is out first though. Here we go. Solen Bilawan is on the offensive as well. Lan should have a little bit of confidence for this run. However, the last person whose eyes you want to see meet you in T2 is Solan Bilawan. That name means something, Jess. She is the three-time world champion for a reason. Oh my goodness me. Tell you this, I’ve got goosebumps all over from that. We’ve been sat in our cold tent here with people coming in and out all day. But when you see moments like that, you know what it means to these athletes, too. Look at the form of Felix Parisier. Right, we were looking down on Arthur Ser just now. I don’t I want to say it while he’s out of here. Shot. I don’t think he looked too good. I don’t think he was running anywhere near as quick foot cadence as we see there or from this guy. Yen looks he just has that road type of running. You know, his hands go in front of him. This is exactly the T-Rex style that I was talking about. Velociraptor. Exactly. His hands are just completely relaxed and going in front of him. But also, look at the lineage that he has. His his body is moving forward. He’s falling over, but that cadence just keeps him going. It’s really an efficient style of running. However, once you get up to that difficult gully that you were talking about where Felix is right now, that’s where he maybe struggles a little bit. That that gully is really nasty. Really nasty. Right here is Barbara Riveros, the four-time Olympian in third position. She is in third position. What a performance. Bronze medalist. Whoa. Yes. Now, she’s going to use her run to good effect as well. So, we need to focus on what the timing gaps are as they come out of T2, if any of the girls, if any of Sen or Lan underperform, then what’s going to happen is Barbaros is going to be there to lap up the second place. Here we see Yenzil. He’s going to uh come into that difficult up technical uphill section, but actually Aneta Grabler Soldati is here in fourth place followed by Sam Teller. Sam has had a lot of just a little tiny tangent. Sam has had a little bit of an unfortunate time getting to Meno. His bike uh was shipped all the way to the UK uh when it was supposed to be shipped to B to Berlin where he was staying for 4 days, much longer than what he anticipated. and he is getting a front seat to the women’s race. Here we see Emma Drew coming in fifth. This is a really awesome uh bike from from Emma. I would expect her to struggle a little bit as we see Lan passing uh Bart Kimmans again. Here is that um here is that form that Chess was talking about. Our tour relaxed falling over a little bit. Although maybe not the form that we’ve seen from him in recent years. He is just a little bit further behind than what we would have expected. I think Aneta at this point is going to have a really big job on her hands trying to hold on to that fourth place. Uh what an overperformance especially considering a gold uh there this field is completely stacked but behind her are people like Anna Zender Alanis Cifford. These girls are really close by. If you’re trying to breathe down her neck, even though the gap is only 5 minutes, anything can happen. Barbara, I expect that she’s going to strip down some of these layers and just run re in this really smooth uh fashion that she has. It’s going to be really evident. She overperformed on the short track in our opinions and she’ll be able to hopefully back that up on the long course. Yeah, she is a, as I say, four-time Olympian. She was fifth in the triathlon at the Rio Olympic Games. And now we look at Landu Voisan who looks like she’s moving nicely as well. Well, Barbara Riveros now in more traditional form. She’s one of those riders who does the 29er makes her look about 3T tall. She’s a really compact, lightweight athlete. Boy, is she strong though on that mountain bike. And Anetta Kuramour coming into transition right behind her. We know Anetta has really good transitions because of that uh road experience. And here you see the difference. Barbaro has to strip down some of those layers while Aneta just goes in with the shoes. Really expert. So good highlevel transition. This right. So Aneta Grab Müller is exiting in exits in third place. She she she overcame Barbara. This is a really strong performance by Anetta. Yeah, bearing in mind uh yeah bearing in mind that she’s ill as well. Anetta Grab Müller. Let’s think where she finished last year. She was in fifth. So even though she’s ill, she’s kind of marking the improvement she’s made this year. Ollie, it’s actually delightful to see that. Exactly. And uh yeah, continues to to show that step up that she’s made this season. Um while we see Yeah, Felix going over that that eight station for the last time. And the gap behind him seems to be pretty big at this point. We would expect maybe a minute to Yens at this at this point. I’m going to say it now. Although he’s just gone into the technical section, I think Felix Fericio is about to become world champion. I think so, too. And and how deserving would that be? Not just on his performance today, but he’s the World Cup winner. He’s the most consistent all the way through the year and last year, too. What a performance. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. He has yet to enter that really technical ankle unfriendly section that we talked about. Anything can happen. Yens might just be 30 seconds behind him, and we don’t see it just yet. although obviously that’s the less um probable thing to happen. So Lambi Voisan here has a gel in her hand by the looks of it. So sensible across this 10k run. It’s not an ordinary 10k run taking in the energy keeping it going. So important she has and she had has another I think tucked into her bra. And interestingly if any of you guys are listening are interested she had 220 gram of carbs on the bike alone. So that’s about 130 gram per hour I would say at this point. So hang on hang on a minute. How on earth do you know that? I talked to her. I talked to her before. But if you’ve not learned already, you don’t believe everything everyone tells you. She could have been telling you that. So someone else goes, “Well, I’ll take on 300.” And then their stomach’s all messed up. You’re You are accepting way too much of what they tell you. Here we go. This is and she is really not far behind Lan at this point. No. Here’s the overlapping of the races as well. She is just there running ahead of Max Chennai who is in fourth place in the men’s elite race. This is the woman who has come back here to get her fourth title. Can she do it? Let’s watch her form as she goes into that gully run. That is a really tough section. Oh, I’m glad we’re getting to see it again here. This is nearer the top now of the waterfall. So, we’ve got a camera in there, which I didn’t think we’d get to do. Really shows you, but it is literally one foot in front of the other. This is so hard. Lan is walking here. You can see. And I would anticipate that this section suits Solen better. Lan has that road turnover. She is able to just unlock that really high speed. While this is actually an ebike, I believe this might be pillow. I don’t know how he’s doing this. That’s wild. I I must admit, I hope he knows where he is because I wouldn’t have gone up there. And I have to say the ride down the other side of the waterfall is lethal. He might have to just throw the bike off and run down, I think, because I would not ride down there. And I don’t believe it. You’ll be riding down it faster than if these athletes run up it. Wow, what a ride by him. If that’s him, he’s I hope he knows what he’s doing because this is an extremely technical running and hiking trail here. Don’t be surprised to see Lan Duvoan doing this. I ran this trail about 7 o’clock last night. It was almost pitch black up there and I was doing exactly the same as her. I was trying to run up it and I hadn’t just done the whole triathlon like this. I was just out for an evening jog, but it is so hard. She’s back into her stride again now. Lando. Yeah. Let’s see if if Sen has been able to make up any time here. Um I I really think that yeah, Sen here has to activate that off-road triathlete mode that she that she has. You know, she’s the queen of off-road triathlon at the moment. She’s being challenged for the title by Lan. Uh Lan comes from Vero. She understands how to run fast, but how to run fast on good trails. And this is anything but a good trail. Just to say, by the way, for those of you watching this who who do compete off-road or want to, what you’ve just seen there is a really important thing to remember, and I’m sure Landuan will reminded herself this at times. It’s okay to walk in a race when the trails are as technical and tough as they are here. Walking some people having a swim in the waterfall by the looks of it. Actually, not entirely sure they had all their clothes on. I think they may have been nude, Jess. Well, I don’t know. I can’t remember. Actually, we have had that in a broadcast this year already, but we won’t even go there. My goodness me. Well, they were having a nice time, weren’t they? Yes. Looks pretty cold. Ver. Yep. Yep. Okay. I’m not sure they realize they’ve just been out on TV broadcast all around the world, but there we go. Anyway, so so yeah, just to say it is really important to remember remind yourself I mean I’m nowhere near the level of Landu voice and I wasn’t when I was racing either, but I’ve won a few quite a few off-road duathons where I’ve walked quite a lot of bits on the run where it’s been so technical and it’s quite a thing to say to yourself, no, it’s okay to walk. It’s okay to walk because if you try and run, you can actually overcook it so much that you then had it. Exactly. Sometimes it’s really important to be able to bring the heart rate down. Sure. you look at your watch and you’re going, you know, seven, eight minute ks. And that’s just due to the nature of the course. Sometimes it’s good to just bring the heart rate down, walk it, go down, you know, 10 seconds per kilometer. It’s really not that much slower uh as opposed to running it. But the heart rate difference is massive. Yeah, it’s a case of particularly in survival mode like this, putting one foot in front of the other, keeping the cadence going, keeping the foot strike nice and light on this trail, and transitioning again between suddenly getting the leg speed up, kicking the heels up behind you a little bit more, getting back into your normal running stride. She’s now going to come into the first of the downhill section, and this is where it really tests the quads as well for these women. This is where we’re actually going to get our first timing split of a run as well. Uh, right at this eight station. So about in 200 m is what what it was indicated. So we’ll be giving you that you guys that as soon as possible. So we’ll pick that up as we do. She’s onto the effectively the second of the trail roads here as well with the forest either side. She’s well into bear country. In fact, I remember it from last night. She’s just run past the first of the signs that says caution bears. Make sure you are bear aware. Um Oliver and I have both read our bear aare manual. Um, do you want to just paraphrase what you do if you meet a bear in the forest like this? Ollie, um, let the bear know you’re there, because bears are usually scared to hurt humans. Um, then if the bear starts following you, uh, avoid eye contact. Try to walk away. If that doesn’t work, then and if the bear starts trying to attack you, then try to make yourself scary. If it does attack you, curl up and try to protect your organs. Unlike those people up in the woods there, they’re not protecting any of their organs. I can tell you that much. And by the way, it’s exactly the same format that you follow if you meet Conrad Stalks in the Woods, too. Pretty much the same. In actual fact, he’s probably more dangerous. There we go. Although, as revealed to us, that nickname the caveman comes from his ability to ruin bike equipment, not other people. I believe I believe this is Finnick Frizzier just coming in. Uh he’s he’s getting really close to being on the beach front now. This is the last probably has 1500 meters to go. though in before he’s crowned world champion. This is an unbelievably deserved title. Felix has worked so hard for this. There’s one man who has always bested him, Archer Syria. And he has taken it. He He pulled up on the day. He dropped Archer Syria on the bike. He dropped Yens. Yens made a mistake. Making mistakes is part of the game. Risk. Risk is risk. If you overcook a corner, it’s your own fault. It’s not the fault of the equipment. It’s your own fault because you took too much risk and Felix didn’t do that. He doesn’t do that throughout the season. That’s the reason why he’s so consistent and so he deserves this in my opinion maybe even more than anybody else. Oh, look at that. On his shoulders you can see the French flag, the blue, white, and red of France. He’s done that since he’s been champion of France. He’s always maintained those French colors on his kit as well. We’ve got used to over the last three years seeing the rainbow bands on the lower leg shorts of Arthur Serier, his countryman. And I’ve got a feeling as long as he maintains his form to the finish now in next year we’re going to see Felix Fishier with some big rainbow bands around that triuit because he is running his way towards his first world title. And if there has ever been a man waiting to do exactly that is Felix Vericier. Yes, we’re watching Yenzil Sloth Nielson is doing everything he can, but I think really the improvements in running between this man Yenzil Sloth Nielson and Felix Fericier have been much the same. And there is one man running away with this at the moment. They’re on the same bit of trail. But the problem is Felix Ficier is about to hit the beach. Exactly. Felix is about 300 m away from away from Yenz at this point. That at these guys’ pace is, you know, 1 minute. That’s absolutely nothing. They’re running at blistering hot hot pace. But yeah, Felix Felix deserves this. In my opinion, the one thing he’s done differently to this year is he’s been able to peak for this race. Last year he kind of feels like it he carried his form from the other races. This year he peaked and to beat Arur Sriier by such a big margin and to beat Yenzil by such a big margin is so impressive. He is still looking over his shoulder though. He’s running scared. He’s running well but he’s running scared and that’s not a bad way to be. So Arthur Ser here we believe is in third place right now. He is also out of the technical section. This is tough down here. It’s quite loose rocks with roots to the side as well. But now from now on the run course gets easier and easier and easier until you’re down onto the grass alongside the sand of the beach and Felix Fericier is about to get there. He’s got another steep drop by the way coming as he goes down onto the grass down there. You’ll see him go down a really steep drop that will test the quads one last time. But he must be he must be starting to think about rainbow bands. Exactly. Um, these guys, it’s so hard to make up any difference on this course because all of them are running at 3minute km. And when you go up into the mountains, that’s where you can make a difference. But this, I’d say Felix is being crowned world champion at this point as we speak. Yeah, he’s about to turn down onto the beach. He’ll be able to hear Chernow finish line announcer. He’ll be able to hear the crowd coming because the world championship is coming his way. The Fericier brothers have been such an integral part of Xtera over the last four years since it came to Europe as well. Really since the COVID year in which we had no Exttera World Championship and the crowd are going to be going bonkers up here for a man who has dedicated himself to this sport. Felix Fericier is not one of those who’s been going away to do the road racing going to 70.3 going to anywhere else. All he’s been doing is going back to training to keep improving himself. He’s won the World Cup through sheer consistency this year. Let’s not forget though, he has also won in Greece this year. He won at Western Park, that new round in the United Kingdom. He won again at Oak Mountain in the full distance race. He won again in Quebec in Canada. He won the full distance European Cross Try Championships in Praichia. And here he is backing up consistency with brilliance to become world champion this afternoon. Ollie, just one thing left to do. Look at the penalty box. Make sure you don’t have a penalty. Make sure you’re not getting disqualified. If he doesn’t take it, he would get disqualified. He’s professional enough to take a look over, not make any mistakes, and he’s coming in to take the world title. And it’s his job to check. They’re not there to say, “You need to come in. You have to check your own number to see if it’s on the penalty box.” Let’s hope none of our leading athletes have that one. In fact, any athletes. What a run by Yenzil Slough Nelson. Felix Fericier takes the first clap. The smile is coming because he’s going to become world champion. He’s on the beach. He’s got a bit of a run to do around the edge of the kids playground and what have you. But people know it’s coming. We’re looking at the first of two new world champions coming this afternoon. Don’t mess it up on the fly over, Felix. It’s just a few more steps. He’s going to turn into the finishing straight. Oh my goodness me. This man has seen this coming. We’ve been waiting for it. They’ve been waiting for him. He turns onto the finishing straight. And if there was ever an athlete in the modern era that’s been deserving of this win, it is this man, Felix Barier, becomes world champion. And it is only just sinking in. Felix earned this so well. He announces himself on the big stage. He beat everybody fair and square. He is the strongest athlete in the world. Look at the emotion. Oh, look at the utter exhaustion that hits him like a train. He looks back and he sees no one. He deserved that so much. We’re in our tent here and I think I can hear the roar from here, Oliver, as well. What a moment for the Frenchman. And what a moment it will be when his brother comes across the line and gets to embrace him as well. Finally. Oh my goodness me. How many years has he spent chasing rainbows? The World Cup. Yes. But the World Cup rewards consistent brilliance. This is a one-day event where you’ve got to put it on the line and make every single moment count. And he’s done it. He’s been underestimated. Both Leens and Arur said they were worried about each other. Well, guess what? There’s a new kid on the block. Felix Verizian. You better pay attention to him. Oh wow. Oh, what a performance by Yensil Sloth Nelson. Well, the last two years he’s been third. So, despite the fact that he hasn’t won, as people thought he might do, uh he has bettered his performance from the last two years to now finish second. He’s just got to bring it home. He’s orchestrating the crowd. He’s going to be our silver medalist. We’ll see him in the flower presentation as well. There’s the Danish flag. Well, he’s not gone for any funny hair colors this time. It’s not blue hair. It’s just stripped back bare super fit Yenzamir Sloth Nielson and he improves again. This is a man who also deserves a world title one day. Will it come in Ruidoso? Yen coming in taking the second place having dropped Arur Serie. He deserves this so well. He has made a really serious step up this season and he’s telling everybody I am serious and I am one of the guys to beat. But look at this. The embrace between him and Fedix. What an awesome thing to see. What a battle. What a battle. They were both looking for each other at various times. They were together on the bike course as well. That’s the embrace of two hardy trail operatives who know what they’ve had to go through to get here. Not just this day, but all the days in training that we don’t see. All the hard sessions, but there’s no one there to greet them when they come back. No one out there on the trails on the hills when they’re pushing themselves. Oh, and here comes just like that the threetime world champion, the defending champion. What a race by him. But in the end, Arthur Series run speed just not enough to bring him back to win those rainbow bands that he has at the base of his kit there. That remind us that he is the three-time world champion. This is this is just wonderful. The the respect between the athletes. These guys understand everything they have to go through. And I feel like yeah, this is this is one of a kind. Extera. There’s just so much respect. These guys really understand everything. Well, we’ve had a four-time world champion standing with us in here, Conrad Staltz. won’t be a fourth world title for Arthur Serier. And maybe, dare I say, after a brilliant performance by him, Ollie, maybe it’s a bit of a changing of the guard in this fourth and final year that we’re here in Mulano because it’s a location that that man right there has utterly dominated. You’re looking at one of the very best cross triathletes in world history. Exactly. What a class thing to do em after having being stripped of your world championships title to go up and embrace the guy who won. This is not due to an underperformance by our tour. Felix was just that strong on the day. I’m telling you, watching us racing together, I’m not paid to say this. I genuinely mean it. Show me a better triathlon than what we’ve just watched anywhere in the world this year. Road, off-road, long distance, short, sprint, whatever you like. This place Morvo is just like it’s like a it’s like a Monet painting and we brought the Olympics there. It is the very best in the best is it? It was completely electric the whole way through. We had no idea what was going to happen. The race was completely open. At no point did we think, oh, Archer was going to run away with this or Felix has has gone and done it. It was completely open the entire way and any of these three guys could have won. And now we’ve got the women’s podium to sort out. Oh my goodness me. Landu Voison Soain Bilwan Barbara Riveros. How will they fare on their second run lap? It won’t be long before we switch back to them and try and focus on what they’re doing. Think about the medals and in which order they will go. I wouldn’t kiss him. Well, I don’t know. And I wouldn’t kiss him. Definitely not. I won’t comment on it. Oh, let’s see. Let’s see who comes in for fourth place. I have a feeling that Maxim I hope Maxim Cha is able to hold on to fourth place. However, we did see a Sullivan Midar who is really strong and over overperformed in my opinion to have the fatigue resistance that he that he has displayed today. Really impressive. Well, last year it was Max Shenny in fourth as we know just Felix Verier just looking around for his fellow Frenchman. Actually, it was Yayiah Midar who was fifth last year ahead of Sebastian Caravan the Belgian. Sullivan Midar was seventh last year in this race. The year before that same these three athletes on the podium but different order. Arthur Serier the winner ahead of Felix Fericia and Yenzil Sloth Nelson we had Ruben Rzafa one of the longest running Xtera pros the Spaniard in fourth with Sullivan Midar in fifth so Sully Midar has been up there let’s not forget two years ago surprising a lot of people in this race they were the closing stages of that brilliant performance I think we have about a minute before they come in uh Maxim and and Sullivan the two of them will will be fighting for fourth place uh however based on intermediate time. It looks like maybe it should be Maxim who is just ahead of him. But let’s see. Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. Do you know what I’ve just noticed there as well? A lot of the people down that finishing straight. If you look and think a lot of fit looking young people, a lot of them are youth and junior athletes who are going to be competing tomorrow in their world championship. The second ever running of the youth and junior world championships, the next era. And look at what a way to be inspired. You’re seeing the changing of the guard. Felix Ficier coming in and a lot of young fitlooking faces along there. I guarantee you quite a few of them will be competing in those youth and junior world championships tomorrow. You lot who are watching this wherever you are around the world, make sure you tune in tomorrow to see the next wave of athletes coming through who are being inspired by this lot. The youth and junior champion, a new thing we started doing last year in Xera and they are so exciting. We’re waiting now for the top women to come through. We’re trying to see if Lan is still leading the race or if Sen has actually been able to catch up to her at this point. Whoever Barbara Riaos is holding on to third place. Here we go. Yeah, here’s the answer. So, Max Shane coming in for fourth. The poor thing. Really strong. Well, brilliant performance, but fourth again. The reason I say that, he’s the first non-medist again. I know. But Maxim animated race from start to finish again. Really strong performances. I I love the way this guy races. He adds so much value. So this is the completion of lap one for Landu Voan. And now our attention focuses very much on the chase back between Solen Bilwan, the threetime world champion who is chasing this woman. Landuan still looking really good and we’ve seen a few dodgy moments from her. She really suffered at the end of that bike course. Maybe it’s cuz she’s a leader. We saw more of it. I know there’s going to be elite athletes and heaven knows what’s going on with the age groupers when they get onto that bike course. going to be carnage all over the place. Maybe because she was leading, we focused on her, but it was a it was a tough end to the bike, wasn’t it? This is this is her discipline and and everybody kind of expects her to be the fastest runner on the course. However, to really show up on the day and really put in that performance against somebody who is so bilated. So, let’s just see how this unfolds. Right now, she seems to be she seems to be leading based on the intermediate check. She had about a minute of a gap. That means extending that gap to Sen. However, this race is not over. Oh, as we see a little slip. Anything can happen. Anything, as you just saw there, anything can happen. You can twist an ankle, you can slip off, you can make a mistake, and those can accumulate. Well, let’s hope for her sake. That’s a little reminder of just being very, very careful on those flyovers as well. There’s different terrain even here. This is a kind of uh grippy, gritted um sharp metal set of steps. Then you’ve got the man-made flyovers as well that have those little slats to be running your feet up as well. She’s into another uphill as well. It is constantly changing terrain and before she know it, she’ll be back out away from Meno Town and up onto that very quiet grally fire road as well. And this part has been ridden and and and ran so many times. It’s really hard to explain how much standing water there probably is at this point and how much mud it can it’s it’s a really difficult job to run at the pace that she’s running at in this terrain. We just seen there past the the markoff bike wash area as well. So much mark and mud being washed off the bikes and the ebikes and the the motorbikes which have been out around course. Just want to say again a massive thank you to all of the volunteers and the Extera crew who’ve been out on those ebikes as well gathering the shots. As you say, our good friend Doug Hall just walked past our commentary point about half an hour ago covered head to toe in mud and probably freezing cold. If you’re on a motorbike or ebike out there, you won’t be very warm. Exactly. You won’t be working as hard as these athletes might be. We just passed Mikuel Bushek who is also one of our ebike followers. Uh and yeah, here we see Arur Aruria coming in for fifth place. Welld deserved. Actually six because Kieran seems to have gotten in front of him at the finish. Smila passing over the finish line now going into her her second lap. That’s probably a twominute gap at this point. That may be a little bit too much to to come over. Well, I’m assuming Arthur Fericier now knows about his brother Felix win and becoming world champion. This woman here though, can she do it on this final run? I have to say, watching the form, she’s certainly running downhill better than Landu Voyan at the moment. So, it might indicate that there’s a bit more loaded fatigue on the quads of Landu Voyan. Son Bwan looking around. She’s also got a gel in her hand, too. But she looks well, she looks wasted. But they all do, don’t they? because it is it is a terrible day out. What a br we we really have the the weather has turned up this fourth and final edition of this cycle here in Europe in Mulano to the absolute max, hasn’t it? What a what a hard course. I mean, you can see this is the free time world champion and she’s just struggling in some of this mud. This is a this is just ludicrous. It’s it’s such a hard course. These girls will have spent the entire day, their entire seasons prepping for this. And to perform like this on one day is a really hard job to do. Yeah. And again, we see the difference in terrain. We’re onto a bit of road here where you could quite easily be in a lightweight uh racing flat, a road running shoe, but then you go to lightweight gravel. Then you’re back onto the grass where you could probably do with a cross country spike, maybe even 12 or 15 mm spike, and then suddenly you’re back onto hard pack stone again. It is constantly changing. One thing that isn’t changing is Lando Voan’s lead. She looks comfortable. Same bill one. What do you lot think watching at home? I think she doesn’t look quite as sharp. In fact, none of them look as sharp as we’d have seen one year ago. But Solen Bilwan working hard. There is no doubt about that. She’s in silver medal position now. To actually any of the other athletes in this field, the silver medal position would be really nice to take. Thank you very much. But Solen Bilon has won this race three years in a row now. She won’t want silver. She’s come for gold. There is no doubt about it. And she is a singularly focused athlete. Started the season brilliantly. By the way, she this year raced early and late in the Extera season as well. Starting out in Dunra in in Australia, South Australia for the the first round of the World Cup where she took second to Alise Pacius. again reminding us just how good Alice Pacio was in the first half of the season before she got that stress fracture. That injury which has kept her away from this race. This is the next of the sprints is Porter Midar sprinting it out as well and I think just getting that one as well. Sebastian Caravan sprinting in as well. Kept his kept his long sleeve jersey on as well by the looks of it from the bike. And I think this is Sen passing Andrea Schoffman. I hope I’m pronouncing that name right for our South South African athlete out for her first uh run lap. Now Oliver, I was just saying that I think Solomon looks a little bit heavier footed than she did on the first lap. I think she is struggling here. I think that fatigue is catching up to her. Uh she had about a 2-minute gap, meaning she’s lost another minute to Lan uh on that, you know, faster beach section. Uh and yeah, but Barbaros based on our intermediate timings is about five four minutes behind Solen. Oh my goodness me. So Solen Bilan is is bending over now. That doesn’t look good because she’s not on a technical uphill. Yes, it’s steep here. I wonder if she’s maybe throwing up a little bit. Yeah, doesn’t look good that this is Doug Hall again on the ebike there to track alongside her. Yeah, she’s not in a good way. So Bill one, I don’t think she is really strugg I mean this is what what a battle by her. She’s definitely struggling at the moment. She’s had a gel wrapper in her hand. I think she’s managed to take some of that in. This is a this is a class performance. Here we see Barbaros and this running style is exactly what I was talking about. She’s so relaxed within the shoulders and the turnover is just really high. However, this gap to Sen is probably four or five minutes at this point. So it’s really hard to say whether or not she’ll be able to make it up. She’s in. Oh, she also slips to the top barber of Aeros. We need to mark that. That run now, that ramp is nasty. There’s no chicken wire on it. There’s just the slatted footooth holds as well that you’ve really got to get a foot on, but even they will be slippery. Yeah, and I can confirm that it’s a 4-minute gap to to to Barbara. Uh so, Lan is just really running into this race. She I think she got her nutrition right, she got her clothing right. She’s one of the she’s the only girl who actually dressed up. Uh, Ala, I guess that’s not Oh, again. Oh my goodness me. The second and third place athletes at the moment really being waved to work for this. The form of Barbara Riveros, the Chilean we’re looking at right now. Her form looked great until the form was broken. We know she’s a great off-road athlete, but when we see her into her stride, we’re reminded of the four Olympics she competed in that fifth place in Rio. All of her success on the road over all these years, but she doesn’t normally have to contend with what she’s contending with here. And a minute behind her is Aneta Graul. Now this is a really this is a turnup to the books. Aneta I don’t think is out of the podium at this point. One minute. Although Barbara did completely beat her in the check in the check course ran away from her I think beating her on the on the course by by four minutes just on the run alone. Uh because Aneta came into T2 with with a bigger gap than that. But yeah, Anetta’s running really well here. Much better than what I would have expected. Well, actually, yeah, you’re right. Aneta Grabler has actually had a very good race. If she hadn’t had a cold, we’d still be saying when Gra’s up in fourth, this is brilliant. She’s looking really good because let me just look back. I think that’s her. Where was she? She was fifth last year. So already she’s beating last year’s performance and uh well the year before that she wasn’t in the top 10. So already I think there is I guess there is the element that having been ill might have taken the pressure off her. and she started today’s race with a h let’s just see if I can finish exactly saying that was her thinking but could be Anita seemed a little bit defeated though honestly when I was talking to her in the in the morning she seemed like she didn’t really want to race while Sen just looked completely locked in on the on the objective but yeah different courses for horses right different people have different approaches to to racing as we see Emma Drew now we have this intermediate timing another minute and a half back off of Anita in fifth place there is 8 and 1/2 minutes separating our top five athletes in this elite women’s race. Goes to show how hard it is. I mean, it’s amazing, isn’t it? It really is. Bearing in mind how close it was, of course, after the swim. That is a massive sort out on that bike and the run. Hang on. Yeah, we’re watching back again. We’re looking back at what happened to Barbara Rivera cuz she slipped to the bottom of this as well. There we go. Now, what kind of shoe is she in? Are those hocas? They look pretty grippy. They look pretty grippy. She’s uh she’s light on her feet, too. It’s not like she’s hammering down there. There will be others who slip on that fly over. I wish there wasn’t, but there will be. Here you go. Here’s here’s Selena opening it up again. She’s really strong on this run. She’s probably running 4minute KS here. Just Yeah. Class athlete. The scenes we’re seeing on this run, Oliver, are nothing like what we saw last year. It was a bit tacky last year, but this year’s race has been so so much harder. So much harder than last year. Mulveno has the option of being just a ridiculously hard race or being significantly easier. Let’s get to the interviews of the men’s winners, shall we? Come on, let’s hear from them. That was Arthur Ser. We’re just about to hear from them. So, we’re going to do them in reverse order. Finish. What was the most challenging part of this race? Uh, for sure was a bike. Uh yeah, today I just have two super strong guy in the front. I didn’t have the little extra unit to win a world championship, but I get like uh three years a three years ago. And I’m so happy about this guy. And yeah, today was like I I did a maximum, but I think I’m uh this was a quite challenging season for me and being third here in this condition, it’s like quite okay for me. I’m looking forward to just moving doing something else and have a new world championship uh overseas. What is your message to all fans and your supporters? And you can speak in French. I I can do it in English. I had a girlfriend from America now. So I I’m speaking English. Well, uh I don’t know. I think XAR provide uh the best thing you can have. Like three years ago, it was dry, quite dry. Here it was like a muddy fest. So, everyone could have a chance. It’s a beautiful sport, really hard and really mental. And again, I’m super happy for Felix. He deserve it. He work really hard and yeah, I’m so happy for him. Thank you for being a legend of this sport. We really appreciate you. Thanks Arie there with the questions on the mic. And what a what a brilliant champion in defeat as well as in triumph. One of the more interesting bit pieces of tech I picked up on just in during that interview was that was that he had a a mesh underlay. We’re going to listen for we’re going to hear another interview from Enzil Slo Neielson who came in second just in a second here. Yenzil Sloth Nielsen, congratulations on being the reigning European champion and now second place in the world championship. Could you describe any key moments from this race? Uh well, a good swim put me in a good position for the first time ever, I think, uh in a long course race. So, yeah, that was definitely a great start for me. And then, uh the bike was just pure carnage and we me and Felix could try to work together, but he uh he had me on the downhills today. And uh yeah, I had the hard tail which was faster uphill and and had some good physical advantage there. But um but yeah, he was good on the downhills and a great run set him for a world a welld deserved world champs. And what makes this moment special for you? Yeah, I don’t know. just this this like just racing in these conditions are so hard mentally like it’s you just have to stay calm in some crazy way when everything wants to turn you upside down but um but yeah it it means a lot um of course beating a three-time world champion here is a is also a great great achievement I would have liked to get Felix but but as vice world champion is We appreciate you as as an ambassador of this sport. Thank you very much for everything you do. Cheers. Thanks. Thanks for the crowds. Thanks for the mountains. Thanks for Yeah. Awesome today. Thanks, guys. That’s quite an emotional Yenzil St Nielson who is patently obviously fallen in love with the Doommites. He loves it. And I wonder whether some of the emotion in his voice there, Oliver, is coming from a potential realization that that might have been his best chance to become world champion in the terrain that he loves best. Yeah, with the with the world champs moving moving to the US, uh, you know, it’s always a question of whether or not these these athletes are going to have the the calendar space, you know, whether or not Yensz is gonna maybe move to to iron man racing to 70.3 racing. Uh I I know that it’s something he really wanted wanted really bad and to come second after posting such a good result uh beating our tour is really impressive here. However, speaking of impressive, we are we are looking at and she looks nothing like herself. She looks so strong on Verun. She really does there, doesn’t she? As well, it’s the first time we’ve actually picked her up. We’re back to Son who is in silver medal position, but it won’t do for her. We know it won’t do for her. And she’s now on the downhill run for the second time. This is the second of her run laps. Two 5k laps to give us 10k in total. I’ve worked out the maths there, you see. And she’s about to go right back into those technical trails. The next athlete we hear from though is going to be the new world champion. His name is Felix Faricier. Felix Fericier. What makes this moment special for you? It’s just incredible. I’m just super happy. It was a just an incredible race and yes, it’s a an expectation in the in a athletes career to be world champion and uh yes, it’s just incredible. I just want to say thank to to everyone uh especially to to Ser who’s trained with me in altitude just before and yeah it was just uh it’s just incredible. I’m so happy. Your pace was amazing today. Where did you feel at your best? Uh I was maybe pretty in shape on the bike and uh this kind of conditions uh are pretty good for me. But um I think I was stronger on the run. And tell us in French what is your message to all your fans and supporters? Champion of the world. Yes, world champion. World champion. Felix. I love Felix Fericia. He’s brilliant, isn’t he? He’s going to enjoy the coming year being world champion. I’m certain. There is the top 10. It was that sprint between Porter Midar and Seb Caravan that gave us our ninth and 10th place finishes. It is still and it continues to be a sport which is dominated by the French. On its return to America next year, we will see possibly the rise of more American, Canadian, South American athletes maybe coming into play. But for now, Felix Fissier sits on top of the world in a position that he has earned the hard way. Exactly. I think uh yeah, the the the one the one flag that isn’t French in the top five there, Yensz. You know, I I really know how much he wanted this win. He’s worked for it so hard and for it to not come true after beating the free time world champ for him, I think. Yeah. We get a chance now to look back at the race and how it unfolded. The 1500 meter twolap swim. There was talk amongst the town of Mulvo last night between the elite athletes of the potential for a dualathlon, the potential for a shortened swim like we had last year. None of it though. The full 1500 meters, the twolap Wshaped swim in the beautiful waters of Lago de Mula. We even had time to linger on a great crested grie that sat bobbing on the waves watching this lock getting ready to go. Well, that was the last time we saw them clean because after that they were absolutely tred and feathered as they were making their way up to the just below 1,600 m of elevation in total up at the top. And look, this was the movement of a world champion wearing his backpack with the hydration bladder on. Felix Fericier ticking the boxes. And you know what I’ve always said, Ollie? Tick, tick, tick is normally followed by boo. And that’s what we saw. Fedics got everything right in this race. He made a few decisions that maybe the other guys didn’t do, taking that hydration bladder, for example, but yeah, he was f he was faster uphill than Arusier and faster downhill than Yans Neielson. And he deserved the win. I was worried about him though when he when he went down on his knees there just before the finish line. Get there, man. Make sure you’re there. Very emotional, Felix Foricier, as you would be. I wonder how many of the faces watching on down that finishing straight we might see challenging for medals tomorrow because it was very telling a lot of the youth and junior athletes here to compete in the second edition of the World Championships for youth and juniors tomorrow watching on and being inspired possibly the French athletes too. But I feel at this point we should maybe start delving back into the women’s race. I think we need to. We’re getting far too kind of lovey dyed. Yeah, let’s forget that now. Forget the men for a second. There’s a title up for grabs and I think Landon is really working her way towards it right now. A Swiss woman in the lead, a French threetime world champion chasing and a Chilean fourtime Olympian in third place in Barbara Riveros. We really have brought the best of the athletes to Are we looking at a live picture here? This is a live picture and this is Landon leading the race. Well, I think this is her coming out of the last of the technical features onto the trail. Yes, it is. She’s got to go down this little rocky descent here. Landu Voan has survived what is a terrible part of the course. Now, this is the fourth time we’ve been here in in Mulvane, and we’ve never actually really been able to show you the bit she’s just come out of. It is nasty in there. It’s all off camp. There’s roots everywhere. It’s an extremely narrow single track trail where she’ll have been pulling herself up on branches and trees just to get to the end of it. It’s the last section where there could have been an upset. Um, Sen maybe may have had a little bit of a tiny advantage, but now Lan is back onto her onto her ground. She’s running free 30 minute KS. She’s incredibly fast on this. Doug Hall is following her for the last 2 km with a motorbike and we are going to bring her into the finish. Based on the intermediate timings, she has a 3minute gap on Solen Bilwan who has a 3minute gap in turn on Barbaros in third place. And Aneta Grab Müller is still fighting really well for fourth place with a twominute gap on Ria. Land Voan was fifth in 2022 here in these World Championships. She was seventh a year later. Wow, what a return to Extera for her this season to go straight to the top. Of course, last sorry, last year. Where was she last year? No, last year she was third. How can I miss that one out? Third last year. uh seventh the year before that and back in 2022 she was fifth. She’s been knocking on the door. This year though, she hasn’t bothered knocking. She’s barged it down. Exactly. Lan has been one of the athletes who maybe doesn’t go to all of the races, but when she turns up, she wins and she competes to win. She races big. She’s a class athlete. She won in check last year overcoming the likes of Anatagur who I believe had about a 4-minute gap on her on the run. That just that just goes to show how good of an athlete this is. Lan now understands that maybe for her in the future the road might be it, but she is here with us right now in Exttera and she is going to do it. And today, as we know, was the last opportunity to win here on European soil in Mulano in this cycle. I’m sure we’ll be back. We heard it from Steve Andrews about that kind of three-year plan and the race going to uh Ruidoso for confirmed for the next three years of World Championships. and it’s going to be a straight world championship there as well. So, um this is the last chance and they know they are now cheering on a world champion. We don’t know the latest timing check. The last one we saw was actually a 3 minute 6C gap back to Solen Bilwan. The three-time world champion, the French woman back there is uh well, he’s really going through it, but I think she’ll survive to win silver. Hey Oliver, I’ll tell you another thing. You know, the remarkable thing is we’ve been here four years now. There’s only ever been French winners. There has never been anything other than a French winner here in Italy. We are now looking at the first one and the first one and the last one. Yeah, just like that. What a what a what a strange course that only suits French winners, isn’t it? Incredible. Incredible. Well, um I think if I may have a word on Sen. Sen, she’s struggled a lot this season. She’s had a bunch of injuries. She she had I think three or four really major injuries that would have been, you know, detrimental to any other athlete season. She’s worked through them. She’s she’s shown her resilience. You know, that’s really one thing that you have to you have to talk about when you talk about Sen. Sena is the most resilient athlete I know. And I know that leading up to MVO, she maybe wasn’t able to have the run the run prep that she wanted to have. And you can see that, you know, not just within these pictures, but within this race. Selena’s running better than practically anybody else on this course. there just happens to be somebody who came into this race with significantly better prep, better better conditions, and that’s that’s why she takes a win. But I don’t think we should be you we should I think we should celebrate Sen because Sen came in here with a with a lot of unfortunate circumstances and she’s still able to get a second place. Um I think that’s really awesome. Of course, it’s awesome. It’s absolutely brilliant. Any of the other athletes behind her would dream, would grapple anything they could to get that second place. is just purely the standard that she has set for herself by winning that world title three times over here. Look, we we’re both always going to be positive about it, but on paper, yes, you could call this a failure. It isn’t. But on paper, statistically, it’s one step. She’s never done anything other than win here. And unfortunately for her, the level that she sets is so high, we can’t, you know, we can’t mathematically talk about it in any other way, except that the races aren’t one on maths, are they? It’s about what you’ve gone through to get there and what you go through in the race. and she is going to be running to a remarkable silver medal. But we are looking here at a new world champion. Two new world champions crowned here. We had to wait four years. It’s the fourth and final time that we’re racing in this phase here in Mulano. And what a day. The weather turned up trumps. The weather turned up to be the worst we’ve ever seen it in Mulano. And the racing arguably, I think, turned up to be the best we’ve ever seen it. Yeah, this was a this was an absolute fest of mud, of grit, determination, of power, and this one woman had it all. Loan Deon is coming in for her first ever world champs title. She deserves this so much. She’s going to upset the three-time world champion, Solen Binois, who even on her worst day gets second place, which is really impressive. Lan worked so well for this, and it’s so deserved. She led on the bike. She overperformed. I didn’t expect her to be as strong on the uphill as she was. She held that pace on the second on the second lap. She overcome overcame some of the strongest fields we’ve seen in Extera Racing. And here she has a Swiss flag and she’s coming into the finish. Yes, a Swiss flag which has never been raised above the head of an elite athlete winning here in Mulano. You have to go back a long long way all the way back to when it was in Hawaii in Maui to find an athlete that wasn’t French to win it. And she is going to break that duck right here. And what a way to do it. If you saw the short track midweek, you will know that Lan Duoan came to this race in sparkling form. But what a way to take your world title. She is seeing rainbows. We’re seeing the Swiss flag. And the crowd are absolutely loving it. She’s not there yet. Let her cross the line. What a moment for Landuan who has come in peak condition but survived so much adversity on that race to become world champion. Bang. Just like that, she wins the World Champs. So welld deserved by Lon. Oh, what a moment. And now the emotion hits her. The fatigue will come later, but right now it’s just tears. A moment of of utter emotion for an athlete who’s been at it so many years across all different disciplines as well. But it comes together on the banks of Lake Mulano for this wonderful emotional moment. One of the best to ever do it. Oh, I think she’ll enjoy the party tonight. She has earned that. And she gets the cowbell to ring, too. Barely lift it. That’s Chun, our our favorite moderator of Xter. He does a fantastic job keeping everybody entertained. And yeah, Lan seems to be struggling with that. You would, wouldn’t you? Yeah. You mentioned Chun. Why does he wear duck shorts, Oliver? Can you tell me? I have I have no idea. I believe it’s his own personal brand. Oh, is it? Yeah. He’s got a clothing brand, isn’t he? Yeah, he he sells his own duck duck uh duck goodies. And this is Sandra Mayhoffer, the two-time Extera World Champion who coached her. This is really nice. Silver medalist last year, of course, Sandra Mayhoffer as well. So, great to see her back here as well. Sandra has recently started racing on the on the road uh in the Marathon series. She’s, you know, one of the best. I believe she she won the Marathon to do Dolommiti. This is uh Lan’s uh husband right next to her. Really nice to see. What a moment. What a special moment. And he will know the sacrifice she’s made day in day out ticking the recovery boxes, all the nutrition, the training, the hard work. You will have seen absolutely all of it. Here we go. In my opinion, still the greatest of all time to ever do it. Maybe Flora Duffy could make an argument, but I think Solen Bilwis Hey, Leslie Patterson. Leslie Patterson. I’ll stand up for Leslie. Here she is. She’s in a She’s in a good mood. She knows what she did today. She’s coming second at the World Champs. Sen does it with panach. She races with heart. She wears her heart on her sleeve and it is so awesome to see. She brings so much to the World Series. She brings so much to racing. She is such a lively individual and it’s really nice. But it’s one thing to do it when you’re feeling on peak form, but when you’ve got problems, she’s come into this with a foot injury as well. She has been right through it here today to raise your game and win a silver medal in the world championship. I agree with you. I I do think looking back and also thinking Ollie about the way the races have changed and what the course in Mulano is like and what they’re having to go through on a day like this. I think there’ll be few people disagree with us that probably Solid Field One is the greatest off-road triathlete of all time. You know, the reason I say that is just look at look at the field. The field this is this is so competitive. It’s not like you have a couple mountain bikers who one, you know, decided to come try a triathlon. All of these girls spend their entire seasons working at this goal and Sen is consistently able to be dominant and on her worst days, she comes second. And that’s just something that has to be celebrated. Her mindset, the way she’s able to come into these races, race with such admiration for her opponents as well with so much respect. It’s really great and we love to see this. So much smiles. Yeah, she’s doing her sponsors proud as well cuz I think she’s managed to wipe some of the mud off the front of that white triuit. Good luck getting that one clean. That might just go in the bin or into the recycling anyway. Clothes recycling. In fact, there’ll probably be a fair few fans here who’d pay a good money for one of her old triuits covered in mud as well. Special momento for a very, very special athlete. A threetime world champion. Always crowned on the banks of Lake Mulvano here. And now she starts to smile. Ollie, I think we can safely say her body is absolutely hammered at the end of this. And well, it might be because you’re looking at one of the hardest uh Extereroa World Championships in the 29 years that we’ve been doing this since they gathered on the banks of the lake way back in Maui 29 years ago. You’re looking at one of the greatest, arguably the greatest of all time, Solen Bilwang. Yes, she hasn’t managed to go four in a row here to get level with with Flora Duffy, but what a performance in silver. What a champion. This is what a champion. Thank you, Salen, for racing with us. Absolutely. She’s pointing to the back where we see the uh the symbol of Xter World Champion. She’ll just take a walk back down the aisle. Say thank you to everybody. So loves racing. Oh, she’s got some energy now. I love it. What a moment. You only get that kind of thing in Exterero as well. You just don’t get it anywhere. There is something about not just the race, but the journey you go on where you’re you’re being tested by the mountain, the mud, the rain, the gravel, the grit, the rocks, the roots. Don’t forget the witch’s fingers constantly trying to bring you down. Barbara Riveros coming in third place. I mean, I didn’t expect this at all. I was looking at Alanis Cifford. I thought maybe Elizabeth Akuridori, maybe uh Noi Bjato, maybe Isa Hedley who just performed so well on the day. Where are those athletes right now? They are spread around the Doomite. It’s been such a hard race, but yeah, here we see Barbara coming in for third place Chapo. I mean to to have so much class and here we see an embrace between Lan and Sen. Awesome. Look at the state they are in as well. And the male athletes who are still finishing behind as well. absolutely caked. I dread to think what’s going to happen in the host family homes they’re in and the hotels they’re crammed into right now. I hope they are ready. If you’re watching and you’re one of the host families, by the way, get the bathroom ready. Me. Oh, there’s a smile of a world champion. And here is the running form of a wonderful four-time Olympian, fifth at the Rio Olympic Games. such a regular feature in road triathlon over the last what 20 years. She’s now I think let me get the age right. I think she’s 38. Barbara Riveros and a Chilean athlete who is going to add yet another flag to our podium. A Swiss woman the winner, a French brilliant Extera world champion in second and then a Chilean flag in third as well. Barbara Averos, we doth our peaked caps to you. And I wonder where Barbara could really go because, you know, clearly some she has some some room to improve on the technical sections. So, just to think, you know, what if she spent the entire season really working on those mountain bike skills? I have a feeling she could be pushing uh Lan to to Sulen to the first or the second place here. It’s almost as if she needs to do some work with someone who can break down all the stats, you know, and analyze all the numbers. I don’t know if you know anyone that No, I don’t know how to ride a bike. I know how to do the numbers. Oh, there we go. Right, she’s going to turn into the straight and she’s seeing bronze. She’s come to this. The 38-year-old nowhere near the end of her career. She looks as spritly and bright as she did when she burst onto the scene as a youngster. Well, we wish her the very best of luck for qualifying for her fifth Olympic. She looks emotional, too. Barbara Riveros, despite everything she’s achieved in the sport, she is our bronze medalist, and we will see her on the podium, too. What a podium of talent. Just class. just class performance, you know, awesome to see these three girls really put up an incredible show today. But I am expecting to see Anita Grauler Sati hopefully come in for fourth place. Whether or not she will be pushed by Emma Drew, I do not know. Or maybe Marta Menito. She don’t forget about her. She is currently sitting in fifth in sixth place. And she is a really strong runner. So let’s see where this race takes us and who it brings in for fourth place. Ollie, when we watch the face of her there um as as she’s looking around Barbara Averos, she then there’s Conrad Stalks as well who you heard on the mic earlier giving her a high five. Well, Conrad gets himself an extra hat, doesn’t he? One of them, did we? What was he ever achieved in the sport? Oh. Oh, yeah. Yes, of course. Um anyway, it was a great pleasure. My goodness me. Here she comes. Here she comes. We’ve not seen her all run. We saw her briefly on the fire road at the top. This is a unbelievable. She has no right to do this when she’s been ill like this. And she’s come to this. She’s come back and she’s going to get her best ever finish in a world championship from being sick having this is her her husband David Satia and her daughter Emitka. Just awesome. I cannot believe that Anetta is coming in for fourth place. This is such a huge performance on the day. She managed to just completely o like outdo our expectations. I thought Aneta was going to suffer. She she thought she was going to suffer. She probably suffered, but she got an awesome result in the end of it. She’s got one incredible muscle going on, and that is the brain in the head, the willingness not to give in. My goodness me, no wonder she’s crying after what she’s been through this week. She’s come to the race. She’s got ill, and yet she’s got her best ever World Championship finish. This is unbelievable. She’s in fourth. Yes, she’s out of the medals. Look at this. Don’t start me. Don’t Don’t set me off. I don’t need this. She’s not to the line just yet, but she will be. Let’s get it finished. Fourth place for the Czech superhero. Absolutely awesome. Anita really deserved that. I cannot believe that she had such a good race. This is just so nice. I know she’s the first one out of the medals, but who cares about a medal? That was a hell of a performance. Yes. Well, I think we’ve just seen her clearing out her nostrils as well. I was about to say, are you sure she had a cold? But I think we’ve just seen it. She hasn’t been right this week. We saw it in interviews. I I saw your interview with her plainly obvious that she was sniffing and snuffling her way through it while she sniffled and snuffled her way to fourth place. And I think Lan sniffled and snuff snuffled her her way to a win. You know, look at her. Look at how much it means. Ollie, you know these athletes really well. I’ve now been absorbed into this journey at the Exttera family as well. And it’s the most emotional I’ve felt on the mic in a long time watching this because as you watch their faces, we’ve been out there, right? We know what it’s like. This is nothing. I’m not taking anything away from road triathlons, but when you’ve done a road triathon, you think through the effort you’ve gone through in that race. But these athletes will be thinking back to where they fell on the rocks, the roots they slipped on. The moment in the middle of the forest when no one else was there, even we couldn’t see them and talk about was happening. There’ll be dramas amongst these medalists that you and I did not even see in a quiet moment in a forest on the edge of the lake that no one else saw. And it’s that journey, that physical journey. Here comes that World Cup. The World Cup winner. Yeah, the World Cup winner from this year in fifth, Marta Mandito. We’ve not seen her belly all race solid. What a performance. Marta has run her way into this coming fifth ahead of Emma Drew. Emma Drew in six. Awesome result for her as well. But I cannot believe that Marta just came out of nowhere to take that. Yeah, really well deserved. Well, that was close. No wonder as we saw them there that Martandito did not want to ease up. Neither did Emma and the crew not knowing what the gap was behind her. She wanted to close the gap as much as she could. So, first of our interviews will be with the Chilean Barbara Riveros. So, what an incredible comeback. So, this is uh another world championship for you. How did you expect this third place first of all, congratulations. Oh, thank you so much. Uh I’m very grateful to be in one piece. I know I didn’t expect it. I was a bit scared of the bike course. Uh I never practice in the mud. So for me it was just uh trying to survive and uh hopefully to make it uh to the finish line in one piece. So that was my second question. How did you cope with the mud? Because today we there were really hard conditions especially on the bike. Well uh I knew that some part in the route I couldn’t ride over so I just I run it. So I um and then uh on the descent I have a old friend like Conrad uh always told me in my first exterior that I need to keep the float and no over break. So uh we’re just trying to uh no break on the route or in the slippery rock. So trying to keep moving and uh yeah so make it to to the to the transition uh in one piece. When did you realize you’re in the third place? Uh well I’m I was h good in the climb when it wasn’t that technical and then um uh Aneta caught me I think in the last bit always in the descent where I was a bit more technical and I always um for me racing in the cold it’s really challenging so I have extra clothes with me and um so always my transition were very slow but I think it pay off to keep the core temperature up and then uh I felt a little bit cold in the run at the end, but I guess uh that was uh that was a good move to keep uh warm in the in the bike. So, the plan worked today. This is it. Third place. Congratulations one more time, Barbara Riveros. Oh, there she’s referencing Ollie just how many layers she had to put on. When we first saw her, it was like, oh my gosh, she’s mummified heading out onto that bike course. but sensible and she said herself. She knew she’d lose time by doing that, but it was essential for her. I think uh keeping core temperature up uh clearly was a good idea. It worked for Lan, looked for worked for Barbara. Obviously, every every athletes a little bit different. Um in the men’s race, our tour I was talking about this was wearing this really interesting mesh jersey, which is good for for multiple reasons. First of all, it’s really light. Second of all, it traps air and makes you warm, but also doesn’t get wet, which is uh, you know, something you’re always going to be thinking about when you’re starting in the water. If you start with an undershirt, it’s just going to get wet. And the question is, is it going to be able to heat up uh fast enough for you, you know, to to get warm? Look at that. I could I could look at those shots. Isa Hedley. Now, Isa Hedley is coming in for what, seventh place, having been leading on the bike course. We saw her with that technical issue. I’m we’re going to try and find out for you during the course of our live broadcast if we can how much that affected her because really after that point we didn’t see her. She was messing around, wasn’t she, with the uh with the air canister, desperately trying to get it in, doing everything she could. What a great race she was having. I mean, seventh place is still brilliant, but she won’t be happy with it as you watch her face. I think she’ll be happy to finish. She gives it to Sn. But oh, there’s an athlete who’s been through it today. Ollie Isa, this is an awesome performance. you know, coming in top 10 in such a good World Cup field. This is just unbelievable. Isa young. I know she’ll probably be disappointed. There’s nothing to be disappointed about. She She raced with so much heart. She led for half of the race. I mean, who else can say that? That was so gutsy. What a performance. Really nice to see. And she’s the future, Jess. She’s 20 years of age. She’s the future. And she’s British, so I’m not going to disagree with you. Scottish, right? Well, Scottish. We’ll give you that. Let’s move on to the winner. So, Solen Bilwin, second place. You’ve been here four times. So, this is the fourth time you’re here. The first three times, world champion. This time, a second place. What did it change? Um, I think I didn’t have my best day, but it’s not about complaining, you know. I just finished second in the world. Um, it’s it’s super hard to stay at the top and I have done it for three years. So I just enjoy him at now. It’s uh such an accomplishment still be on the podium. Loan was really strong. I think even with a good day, it would have been hard to battle. So congrats to her. And yeah, it was tough. It was a big challenge. Where was the the most difficult part that you have to face today in the race? Um myself. No, my energy took a long time. Like it took me an hour on the bike to feel my legs. So that was really hard mentally. So I had to really stay positive. So you stood positive. Third wins here as second I mean the fourth time a second place. Well that must be a huge satisfaction for you Bilwin. Yeah I think after four years I reflect on the things I have achieved and I’m very proud. I’m very proud that I also maybe inspire some young women to start a sport being active and having a passion and it just brings people together and yeah I just love the sport. Yeah. So please be proud second place six world championship. What a lovely thing to hear as well and she’s absolutely right. It can’t help but happen right here because as I say that’s why you could flip it and say no we’ll make the elite races on the Sunday but I tell you what Xera here we’ve got it bang on the right way around elite races on the Saturday for the world championship youth and juniors the next day it simply means that all those youth and junior athletes are right there right now being inspired by these great champions. Now let’s go to our actual winner rather than the silver medalist Loan Duvoan the Swiss athlete. Let’s hear from her. Landu Vazan, first of all, congratulations for you. An amazing day today. You won on Thursday in the short track and now the double victory here. Yes. Yeah, it’s really amazing. I couldn’t ask for more. So, yeah, I’m really really happy. So, tell us from the very beginning, how was the swim? How was the bike? We know very muddy. And then, uh, you’ve done an incredible run today. like a blistering performance on the run especially. Um yeah, it was really tough. I’m It’s always hard for me to perform on cold conditions. So yeah, and especially on the bike, I knew I had to push really hard on the less technical parts. Uh because yeah then I’m not the strongest on the on the flow trails and on the mats but uh yeah I I could uh had the help from Sandra myer who helped me yeah to have the the best line so I I tried to yeah to do my best there. I crashed a lot but yeah then I also knew I could play my cards on the run. So yeah I think it was a good race. But you started from the second transition with 18 seconds in front of of Solen Bilwin and then at the end you had like three minutes ahead. Uh yeah, the run is going uh well. So well I believe everything is going well. Everything went great today. So once again congratulations for being the extra world champion 2025. Thank you so much. I can’t wait to see what I have to say. I think I’m looking most looking forward most to seeing the women’s podium because that is going to be an emotional one as well. And then of course you think about the picture that we’re about to see of Felix Fericier stood on that top step as well. It has been a long time coming, but the steps to the top have been even. He’s earned this. He’s waited for it. We’ve waited for it and it’s happened. Jess, I think I don’t think there’s anybody in the top 10 in many of the women’s fields who is unhappy with their performances. We’ve had an awesome day of racing. I’m emotional just watching this. You know, I’m I’m closed in a tent with you and I want to cry. Not because I’m closed in a tent with you, but because it’s been such a great day of racing. There so many stories. These athletes just put their entire lives on the line. You know, there it’s so much emotion. Anything can go wrong. There’s so much hanging on this to perform on one day and they do. And it’s just awesome to see. I’ve been careful and cautious about the way I’ve said it. I’ve biged up the road side of things. I’ve picked up all sorts of other sports. I’ve even talked a little bit of cycling here. But I’ll tell you this, I’m not paid to say it. I say it because I’ve been there. There is nothing like Xtera. If you’ve been inspired by what we’re watching here today, go to extterlanet.com. Plan your journey. Plan your first step into Xtera. It’s not all about the elites. It’s for the age groups. It’s for all. Even for athletes with disabilities who want to challenge themselves in all sorts of terrain, here was that moment for Isa Hedley when she started trying to get air back in there. It’s remarkable in a way that she’s finished in seventh where she did because she must have been running on nearly flat all that time. That was the face of the world champion. This was the world champion as she went down as well. It’s happened to everyone. We’ve only really picked her up doing that cuz she’s in the lead. I guarantee you that kind of off happened probably all the way through through the top 30 women. Yeah. Yeah. And here she comes onto the run just displaying that run speed that we were kind of expecting. You know, Lan is the fastest runner on the field. She showed us again and she came in to take that to take that win deservedly ahead of Solen Bila and ahead of Barbaros. Slip, even the tread on the flag. They’re all little things ready to trip you up. Everything has to have not necessarily gone right, but gone more right than wrong. It’s definitely been that case for that was the moment, wasn’t it, where it hit her. Your tears started and she fell to the floor and you really understand what it means to suddenly realize the peak of everything you put into it. This is such an awesome celebration of sport. There’s so much so much emotion being shown. These athletes just go through the ringer, you know, during this race. Imagine being Isa Headley and leading the the world champs as a 20-year-old and then all of a sudden, next thing you know, you have a flat and you don’t know what’s happening and then you have to go run a grueling 10k race. That’s just so hard to do mentally. And but then you come in and you got seventh in the world as a 20-year-old and all of your friends are embracing you. The world champs thinks you’re you’ve done completely awesome. Sen Bilawa tells you that you’re the future of the sport. I mean, come on. How can you not love this? What a place. Do you know what? I’ve fallen in love with these last two years. My second year here on the ground of the race, Ollie, and it is stunning. I am traveling home straight after those youth and junior championships tomorrow back to United Kingdom and I will miss this place intensely as I did last year but even more so this year. Um it is quite a location. We started our broadcast by me telling people, by the way, that it was announced this week at the UCI Cycling Congress at the World Road Championships at the World Governing Body of Cycling have chosen Trentino itself, this very setting where we are to host the combined Super Worlds of the UCI Cycling World Championships in 2031. So, there will be BMX, mountain bike, road track, Grand Fondo, esports, pump track, and bike polo amongst everyone else. I’d love to see cycling in there. By the way, MO be the perfect place to hold it. I’ll say that right now because Cycl should be joining that super world, but that’s going to be coming here too because it is such a setting for elite sport as well. This place has it all. It’s just it’s so pretty. I wish I didn’t have to leave on Sunday. I have to leave as well. And I have You’re doing the long drive back. I’m doing the long drive back. I have a meeting in the morning on Monday. That’s just not going to be fun. But alas, we get to be here. Likewise, I’ve got early work on Monday morning when I’m back on TV covering the site. But I tell you what, I’ll be doing that from a much more boring place right now. Won’t be anywhere near as dramatic as what you lot have just witnessed. Wherever you’re watching around the world, if you’re watching this live, thank you so much for being with me, Joe Scox, and Oliver T here. We’re not finished just yet. We’ve got the champagne and flower ceremonies to bring to you just yet. So, do stay with us cuz that could be quite emotional in itself. And then also don’t forget that tomorrow we’re bringing you live coverage all the way through. There is no difference for the youth and junior athletes. Those uh what 13 and 14 year olds who are going to be racing. We don’t tone anything down. We don’t take away any of their branding. They will be getting the full world championship experience and we’ll be back on the mic watching them coming. The other good news, by the way, is as we did last year, we should be able to bring back in some of these elite athletes to our commentary point in here. As long as they’ve always been very nice about Oliver and I, we’re checking their social media tonight. If any of them have said anything bad about the commentators, they won’t be in here in our tent, will they? Will they? Will they, Ollie? They couldn’t They could never say anything bad. Surely. Surely not. Well, we’ll say something nice about them. So, I have all of them. I have I have the top 10 in front of me of the women’s race. I think there’s a couple names that we haven’t mentioned. Yeah. No Bato, eighth place. Also, 17year-old. Can you believe that? Just 17-year-old Italian. So strong. One of the strongest runners and bikers in the field. Elizabeth Kuridori, also Italian, also came ninth right after Noami. That would have been an awesome battle, separated by only 15 seconds. It’s a bit of a shame we didn’t see that. You know, we only get limited picture coverage. So, but still awesome, awesome race. Alanis Ciffort in 10th place. Alanis is a world class triathlete ranked I think 30th in the world in W in T 100 right now. So just to show you how strong the top 10 is that she gets in right at the end of it, 18 minutes down on first place. That’s really illustrative. Anna Zender, a good friend of ours, uh 23 minutes down, one of the strongest run strongest runners in the field. Kerianne Oppam in 12th. That’s a great performance by Kerianne. She’s uh she’s from GB and uh yeah, I know she she’s been targeting this a lot. Hasn’t had a lot of luck here before. And even though it’s outside of the top 10, which maybe she would have been hoping for the top 10, I think that’s a completely awesome result for her. Yeah. Well, I I was going to focus on the top 10 for a second, but because she because Kerian Upam is 12th, we’ll focus on the top 12 in terms of nations. Best performing nation in there by number of athletes in the top 12. Italy and Switzerland. Hang on. Switzerland. Oh, of course. Sorry. Yes. All right. So, I can count to three. I may not be a genius, but I can count to three. Yeah. No, you are a genius. Yeah, that’s what you’ve been badged at and you need to live up to it, mate. No, but with a Swiss winner as well, you’re absolutely right with Lando Voisan the winner and then Alana Cifert and Ana Zender 10th and 11th. The Italians probably if you counted them by step finishing positions as well, you could say the Italians have probably performed better with Martandito the World Cup winner in fifth and then as you say, Bodato and Kidori in eighth and ninth. So, the Italians are coming. Let’s hope they take that kind of form, step on another year and bring it to Ruidoso in New Mexico next year. Isn’t it interesting that we have such a different uh composition of countries among amongst among the different genders? So for the men’s race, we see a whole bunch of French flags just to run you through the top 10. Felix won the race obviously as we know Yenzil second, Arur Sier in third, Maxim Cha always fourth but really strong. Maxim just awesome racer. Kieran McFersonson I think performance of the day in my opinion goes to him. Yeah. Kier K Kieran is an awesome racer. Really aggressive uh race races with everything on the line. He edges out Sullivan Midat uh who comes in seventh. Uh Arur Fizier in uh wait no Sullivan was sixth. Arur FZier in eighth in seventh. Nicolas Dur maybe a lesser known name. He is a French triathlete who I believe won Extera France. really strong athlete comes in eighth. Porter Midaw again. So my prediction of yesterday that Josiah Midaw would be the fastest of the Midaw family not coming true uh because Porter Mida despite his young age comes at in ninth and Sebastian Caraban in 10th. Also one of the fastest runners and uh bikers in the field. Yeah, I never like to do this but I’m going to look a little bit further down to see if we see anyone who’s had a not who’s had a tough race and finished lower than we might have expected. I do feel for Mikuel Bonachina. I don’t know what’s happened to him today, but he was 35th. He has finished, so there’s been some issues out there for him as well. Uh, Yan Kranowski, you were saying his name far better than meowski. And that one, he the Polish athlete was right up there after the swim as we know. Finished 33rd. I’m just looking for where Josiah Midar is in there. 15th, but that’s that in itself is uh is impressive. It’s not as impressive as his fifth as last time. No, we’ve got Anderson. is 12th and Scotty Anderson 15th. What a performance. Yeah. Ben Forbes 13th, Elliot Labradet 14th and Jul 16th. That’s stacked. What we’ll eventually have at some point is splits for each of the different disciplines as well to see who the fastest bike split went to as well. All that sort of thing. You’ll be looking you’ll be up all night munching down on all those numbers and digesting them in your your quite considerable um what do we call that? Um number crunching belly. I’ll just say in my hotel room. You know, open your tongue and out will print that lovely that lovely uh sheet. Just in my hotel room. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Just seen Doug Hall walk into our commentary point. Congratulations, Doug. It was lovely to see you and your team out there. Was your day uh wet. You won’t be able to hear him, but we’ll tell you what he’s saying. Slightly damp. He said soggy bottom. Soggy bottom. He’s in full rains as well. I mean, honestly, we take our hats off to Doug and the whole team that were out there on the the ebikes today and what have you, bringing us those pictures because they must have been freezing cold. No matter you’re wrapped up as well, you’re not working as hard as the athletes, but you are having to not crash, stay upright on those roots and make sure we get those incredible shots we’ve got. And Piper Vision and the whole television team, the the drone pilots, everyone that’s brought you this coverage. I’m going to say it again, and I mean it. I cover I’ve worked on the Olympics. I’ve covered some of the world’s biggest sporting events. Nobody does it better than them in terms of capturing the essence of what is a mountain village surrounded by some of the most tricky and testing terrain to bring you a broadcast from. They are world class. Yeah, we’re we’re really lucky to have such good coverage here. I remember every year it’s like this, you know, the world champs have followalong cameras that’s just really hard to get anywhere else. And so the the qual the quality of the footage is topnotch. The only one way they have let us down though is nobody’s brought us any lunch. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that on the I’d love a panini right now. I I Oh gosh, I would. Yeah, you know me. I sat with you the other day and I ate my way through about six or seven different dead animals, didn’t I? The only the only reason I haven’t gotten, you know, starving is that Chess has been feeding me the entire broadcast. I know how important it is. There’s one thing I’ve learned in long broadcast is that you do not get hungry. You have to keep grazing. It’s much like an much like a a race really. You’ve got to caffeinate prehand prehand. It’s quite well. It’s quite well. I’ve never used that, but that’s what it is. And then you got to keep munching, just grazing throughout. And and the the the food of choice in our commentary booth is a mix of little chocolate wafers, some strange savory. Oh, those are those are an Italian those are an Italian special. I’m afraid I don’t like them. You don’t like them? I’ll have one. Have it back. Yeah. Cheers. Excuse my hands. I’m sorry that you didn’t like it. Well, I mean, I think to be careful because the flies might have liked it. One thing I haven’t let people know in is that that actually not that we’re filling here at all by any means, but I’m going to tell you the story. Oliver and I have had a little issue with flies in our commentary booth. Um, I don’t like to kill any creatures, but there came a point about a couple of hours into our coverage of the short tractor that I just had enough of it. The fly kept it landed on my face, landed on my hand. It was on the screen constantly. It was a real and it landed on the desk and I thought, I’m having this. And I slammed my hand down on the desk as hard as I could. Now, those of you who watch the short track may have noticed a short period of time where you couldn’t hear either of us. Well, we couldn’t hear each other. And the sound engineers came running in because they also couldn’t hear us. And it was because I’d hit the desk so hard that somehow somehow it cut out all sound. And you know what’s worse about it? The fly was still buzzing around. Hadn’t got anywhere near it. The the fuzz the fly was still buzzing around and the only thing you managed to kill was our sound system. I know. How did I do that? But the funny thing is the sound came back in. I don’t even think he knew how he fixed it either. I should have just hit the desk again and we’d have been all right. That was just incredible. I mean, my first day on the job and Jess Cox hits the table so hard he unplugs it. Don’t mess with me, right? Talk about caveman in here. Even he was scared when he heard the way I hit the desk. Right, enough rubbish. Hey, I can see some blue sky up there above the mountains, I think. Bit late though. No, but I but it’s not late for the youth and juniors because the forecast for tomorrow, just like it was last year, is actually really good. Yeah, and the and the age groups will be enjoying this. Yes. Yeah, indeed. Um, as people have been telling me all week, don’t worry, the trails dry out really quickly. I hate to say it for the age groupers, I don’t think they’ll dry out. I don’t think so. I No, I don’t think so. I don’t I think they I think they did dry out relatively quickly, but we just had so much rain over the last couple days that they’ve just filled up again. And just to be clear, this is not filling. This is this is contributo bands between Oliver and I while we wait for the podium presentation. I hope you’ve stayed with us. Um, because they’re going to be something special, those podium presentations. That is for sure. It is no longer raining as we look out. Um it is drying out all the time. The age groupers are up on course. We wish them well because there is going to be there is going to be monumental carnage up on those trails for the age groupers. I know it. Um not least because it’ll probably take its toll on some of them harder than it has done on our elites. But more importantly, they’re out there longer. There’s more opportunity. There’s more of them as well. And the trails are absolutely shredded now, aren’t they? Exactly. believe the age grouper race is completely a different beast. Sometimes we have um we have some age groupers who perform to the level of actual elite athletes, but it’s always really hard to judge how good that performance actually was, whether or not that person was, you know, drafting off of the other genders, which by the way is a new rule in Extera that you can draft off of other gender. Um that’s something that has been introduced I think only uh two laps ago as we see Romy Spielder. Yes. Now, we’ve not really talked about Romy Spielder today. Let’s just see where she finished because I did wonder I Ollie whether we were going to see a big breakthrough performance from her today. She was 13th. 13th. But bearing in mind what she’s been doing this season, I did think we might see her in the top 10. I think that the difference here is that the top 10 is so much more stacked. So I think that in terms of her own level, this is probably kind of where I would place her. I think her around Kerianne is uh yeah, not super surprising. uh both of them are really strong athletes but if you just com look at Alan Cifford you know like she’s right ahead of them and Alan Cifford is one of the best triathletes in the world so it’s really hard to judge as we see Hannah Hannah Lee Young uh in the finish area as well so we’ll just we’ll just figure out where Hannah Lee Young finished we know that she secured what was her seasonl long goal of being in the top five in the World Cup there she is the Aussie athlete we’ll look to get her she has a hug with her partner and I I think we will look to get her in the commentary position tomorrow if we can. Hannah, I tell you what, she’ll have some stories to tell. In fact, any of the athletes we get in there tomorrow, I’m going to want to hear about what actually happened because we saw a lot of it, but we definitely didn’t see all of it, did we? Exactly. There’s always so many little stories that happen. You know, as a as an athlete, you just go through this entire saga on every single race day and then just imagine there’s 50 of them on every single uh on in every single race. It’s just so much to tell. Hannah Young who finished in fourth place in the World Cup. And I’m just going to remind people again if you’re watching this, maybe you’ve picked up the broadcast a bit later. Maybe it’s months later, maybe it’s even years later and you’re watching this back. There’s that great crested grief again. Now that’s the adult. I watched one of the youngsters of these incredible birds diving down and chasing fish. What an awesome picture. I know this is Sen’s friends have have brought came out and forced to support her. I This is just lovely. I I love to see this sort of stuff. Yeah. Sorry. Back to your bird. No, I’m done with the great crest of Greed. We just keep seeing it. What? She’s incredible bird as well. I mean, they it’s a it’s a damn good looking bird that and they have this crest as well that when they’re mating, they put it up and it is like literally like ta. Anyway, getting back to Hannah Lee Young, fourth place. She wanted to be top five in the World Cup and she’s done it as well. Admittedly, she would have been fifth. I think we presume if Well, actually, what am I talking about? Alise Pacius was still third. I’m missing her out. She still finished third again and we look to see we look forward to seeing her come back next year. May I have a slightly controversial opinion? Please do. I have a feeling like some of the conversation surrounding Marta Mandito and her World Cup win was a little bit negative as in even herself saying Alisea deserved this. But a part of being and and Alise, you know, showed an incredible level throughout the season and she won a bunch of races and she really deserved to win those races. But at some point there is a calculation that you have to make as an athlete uh in terms of training, in terms of fueling, in terms of how many risks you’re taking. And not getting injured is sadly part of winning a long series. And so I think Marta Mandita really should be extremely proud of winning that title. She deserved that more than anybody. She committed to the to the series more than anybody and she got the calculation right as we see our women’s podium. Barbara Riveros really working hard to get up the steps there. Understandably, she is our bronze medalist in this world championships. a Chilean who is well known to everyone and anyone who’s watched triathlon over the last 20 years. And although she’s 38 years of age, she is far from done yet because I’ll remind people again, she is going for her fifth Olympic Games qualification at the next Olympics. Second place, our free time world champion, Solen Bon, dressing back into her her wet outfit. This is the this is one of the hardest things to do actually as a triathlete is putting on wet sleeves. I don’t know if this is something that people can can relate to, but it’s just so hard. Well, notably, if you look at the traditional triuit of Barbara Riveros there, not all of the off-road athletes choosing to have shoulders exposed. And certainly, Solen Bilon is one of them who tends to wear what we probably think of as more like a speed suit really with longer sleeves on it, too. Different people like different things, don’t they? In terms of what they feel when they’re running, what feels comfortable and useful for them. Anyway, let’s forget about clothing. Solen Bilwin as we know is one of the greatest female cross triathletes of all time. Some would say the greatest. But today she has been bested by this Swiss woman, Loan Du Voisan, who gets her chance at long last to stand top step and raise the flowers as world champion. She’ll have to change something about that kit. It’s up to her whether she has a flash of rainbow around the neck, around the the leg, or even right the way across the middle. I like the flash of rainbow. Art Syria has committed to it, you know, and he has he has some rainbow stripes on his bike and on his on his kit. Uh Solen maybe hasn’t done that, but I think that looks cool. Well, she’s got the the three-time world champion badge on the back, but it’s modest in a way. It’s quite befitting of Sole Bilan, who does strike me. I don’t know her personally, but she strikes me as a pretty modest woman who calmly goes about what she does. Doesn’t make a great big fuss about it, but she has every right to make a fuss about it. I think she’s mostly just chic. you know, she has a good sense of style and so maybe um a rainbow on her on her jersey isn’t that befitting. There we go. Nobody has ever won anything here in the elite races in four years now in Moreno without being French until this moment because Landu Voisan has done it. I’m assuming she’s a Frenchspeaking Swiss athlete anyway. Yes, she lives on the Swiss side of the border. And that’s enough to say that at long last, at long long last, the French strangle hold on Mulano right at the very end has been broken. I wonder if she got a cramp in her neck. Oh no. And it looks like it, doesn’t it? Yeah. I tell you what, what a talent rammed podium between those three. My goodness me. What a talent rammed top 10. I mean, just we’ve been What a great day of racing. Yeah. and the excitement of the youngsters coming through and we see you know 38-y old Barbara Riveros there still performing so well and then we look at the likes of Isa Hedley the 20-year-old for whom the race was I tell you what at one point I thought hang on a minute she’s not seriously going to win the world title is she and then she’s gone through those that terrible moment with the canister of CO2 as well moments that might bring her closer to that world title in the coming years I guess I agree this this sort of experience is really important for an athlete you know unless you know what it’s like to lose a world championship title you don’t know what it’s like to win one. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. There is that top 10. Loan, Solen Bilwan, the Swiss athlete ahead of the French woman as well and Barbara Riveros in third. What have you spotted? I do believe, Jess, that um there is a Czech flag above the the GB flag in that um Yes, there is. Yes, there is in that. Congratulations. Congrat Don’t don’t make me have to send you out of the commentary tent because I will. You know, maybe less than half my age, but I tell you what, I put you in place, boy. Don’t listen to him. The Brits are coming. Don’t you worry about that. I don’t actually came early on the short track. Yeah, they did. But but Grab Müller’s performance. I tell you what, a look at the guys snuggling. Isn’t that nice? You heard we heard, didn’t we, about how they’ve spent time at altitude together. Do you know that was nice to hear because it was one of the big stories last year that coming into the worlds. We haven’t hear too much about it in amongst our elite uh cross triathletes here at Xtera, but Arthur Seri have been spending a lot of time at altitude last year preparing for these world champs in order to beat the likes of Felix Fissier and yet this year they’ve gone to the same altitude camp together. Exactly. As you say, I have a really funny story with Arur. I met him in Czech and he was probably the leanest I’ve ever seen him and he looked at me looked kind of like a skeleton and I said, “You look really lean.” and he said, “I spent too much time at altitude.” Anyways, here it does crazy things to you. And it’s it’s obviously still working for Arthur Sera, who well, we thought was rounding in. In fact, we thought both of our defending champions were rounding in on a fourth title today. But it seems appropriate right at the very end of this incredible four-year cycle here in the Doommites in Mulano. We’ve had a changing of the guard and an opportunity for once again, dare I say it, for Arthur Sera and Solain Bilwan to step up again, another level. Well, it’s not like the two of them are ancient or anything, Ollie. There is still room for improvement. We know there’s always room for improvement. There’s always room for improvement. Somebody who has made a lot of improvements this year. Yans Neielson. I mean, this guy has had an awesome season. He really stepped up. Beat all for the first time ever during this season in Extereroa Germany. He beat our tour and Felix head on. No questions asked. It wasn’t a duathlon. It wasn’t a short and swim. He beat him fair square. It was the first time that has actually happened this like ever for him. But this guy was too strong on the day. World champion. World champion. Actually, I do think of all the athletes we’re seeing, Felix Fericier, the the man the the the mantle of Mr. Consistent. Forget that. Forget Mr. Consistent now. It really doesn’t matter anymore. He’s the world champion. And that’s what we’ll be talking about next year. Not just the guy who’s always on the podium, who’s always there, who’s always challenging, who’s always getting beaten in sprint finishes. No, none of that. We can think back to the short track last year here where he was in the background going, “Oh no, not again.” Well, he’ll be asking for this again. A world championship win with Felix Fericier at the top of the podium. Felix is the best across the biggest amount of time. Plane is Yes, indeed. Yeah. And that’s now undeniable. Here we go. They’ve been banging the bottles already. These three are going to fly. No doubt about it. Watch out. I’m now I’m glad we’re not down there. Thank goodness these guys have so much fun. There’s so much experience doing this. Yes, they do. Absolutely. We see the world champions band on the left leg of Arthur Syria, the French champions band on the right leg of Felix Fericier. What’s the betting that Fericier will come up with some kind of French flag rainbows mashup next year? Yens Yen should get a flag, shouldn’t he? Yes, he should. Well, he has got a little Danish flag there, does he? Yeah, it’s on his on it’s on his top of his left uh pec there. Three incredible all round athletes who today have been tested to their absolute limits in the hardest conditions we’ve ever seen in Moreno. And once again, the cream of the crop has rise to the top and this is some cream. Really strong racing from all of them today. And yeah, again, Maxim Cha in fourth. So strong. So there’s that top 10. Felix Fericia, ahead of Jansen, Sloth Nelson, and Arthur Syrian. Now, don’t forget as they were finishing, the young fit-looking faces smiling and beaming in front of them on either side of that finishing funnel. Many of them were the youth and junior athletes that you yourselves will be able to watch on tomorrow’s live broadcast of only the second ever running of the Youth and Junior World Championships. Those athletes have had to qualify at their own extera qualifying rounds all around the world right the way across the course of the 11 World Cup season rounds. We have deliberately run the youth championships alongside it. And tomorrow you will be able to watch those new champions being crowned. Last year’s winners of Belgium and Andre Pik of the Czech Republic winning the youth A races and in the youth B and junior races Finley Goodman of Great Britain and Maya Telme of France the winners there as well. Will we crown returning champions or new ones tomorrow? You will have to join us here on the Exteroplanet YouTube channel to find out. Just before we go though, a few thank yous to say. Once again, thank you to Fry for everything they’ve done putting into it. The fantastic team at Piper Vision who have put on this incredible broadcast from my co- commentator Oliver Tund from me, Jez Cox, and from all the team down on the ground here in Mulano. Thank you for watching and join us tomorrow, won’t you? Bye-bye, everyone. Bye-bye. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
9 Comments
Pour corrine que j ai perdu .
Je suis Françoise la maman aussi .
Coucou Françoise moi aussi çà a coupé
Go Hugooooo💪🏻
🇨🇵🇨🇵🇨🇵
Who is the Age-groupe-Stream? 😢
CORINE, REMI n est pas encore arrivé au bout . je l ai a 3h 23 36 en course fractionné 2 . j espere pouvoir vous dire si il est bien arrive a la fin
hello et felicitatios a remi boiteux . arrivé ……temps 3h 38 59
D'accord merci beaucoup
Bravo mon fils