Enter the USA’s Fastest Athletes, and XTERRA’s Fastest Format

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Oak Mountain is the first stop on US soil and the first of 5 lightning-fast short track races. The winners of the full-distance race will take 100 points while the made-for-TV short track race the following day will offer the chance to claim another 20. However, these are 2 very different races and never before in XTERRA history has the winner of the full-distance race gone on to win the short track race.

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But the start list is a juicy one and there will be many who are eager to claim a double win. Both XTERRA Champions will be racing, with Serrieres surely fired up to correct the ‘mistake’ of his opening race and Billouin no doubt keen to take maximum points after being edged into 2nd place in the final section of the race in Taiwan. But they’ll have their work cut out for them as they take on not only the rolling hills, stream crossings and the technical, pine-studded ridges of the southernmost part of the Appalachian Chain, but also the direct mental and physical challenges that will keep coming at them all day long  from some in the best in the sport.

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This is another race that could easily be defined by the bike course, with 1,650+ feet of climbing, 7 potentially slippery bridges to cross, and very few clear places to pass, so it’ll come as a relief to some that Ruben ‘the Boss’ Ruzafa is not on the start list. But Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen and Sebastien Carabin are and they will for sure be setting the pace up front with Kiwi racer Sam Osborne who has claimed victory at the last 2 Oak Mountain full-distance races.

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Equally as spicy is the addition of local heroes Josiah and Sullivan Middaugh. Middaugh senior postponed his retirement to race the World Cup and has claimed 5 victories on this course while his son Sullivan, now part of USAT Project Podium, will likely come out firing on all cylinders.

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In the women’s race, Alizee Paties starts as the series leader and after the performance she delivered in Taiwan it’s likely that she will be in the top-contender conversation for some time to come. She is fit, powerful, and her technical skills on the bike are second to none. But if she comes out of the water with Solenne Billouin it could be fireworks all day, just as it was in stop #1.

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There is also Loanne Duvoisin, for whom a victory in this series seems almost inevitable. She finished just seconds behind Billouin in Taiwan and looked as if she could go another round. Now, with another month of fitness behind her, she could be trouble for the leaders in all three sections of the race.

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Rounding out the leading pack will be USA’s own, Suzie Snyder, and New Zealand’s Samantha Kinsford. Snyder put in a powerful performance in Taiwan to claim 6th place and has won Oak Mountain 3 times, while Kingsford is keen to prove her skill on a ‘proper MTB course’ and has already done so once before when she took the tape at the same venue in 2021.

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It’s sure to be a big day out in Alabama, where mental and physical battles will continue from the first stroke to the last step and even spill over into the short track race the following day.

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The adrenaline-fuelled short track race will be live streamed directly from between the tapes, with two triathlon Hall of Fame announcers, Bob Babbitt and Jamie Whitmore, bringing fans into the action as the same racers who battled it out the day before will go head to head once again in an all-out sprint across the condensed course. And with an additional 20 points at stake, the ST race could easily swing the balance of who comes out top at stop #2 in the USA.

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