Arthur Serrières and Loanne Duvoisin have got it done faster than any other to earn themselves the title of 2024 European Champion and the 100 World Cup points that come with a Full Distance win. With just over a month to go before XTERRA Worlds, this will be a massive boost in confidence for Serrières, the reigning World Champion, while Duvoisin will be more than pleased to retain her title as European Champion for a second year running.
Felix Forissier and Aneta Grabmüller may have just missed out on the title, but they’ll be happy with a silver added to their names and 67 points a piece. Forissier will hold onto his World Cup lead, while local hero Grabmüller will be pleased with her second Full Distance podium of the series this year. Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen and Alizée Paties complete the podium, with all six athletes surely now casting their minds ahead to what is possible on the tails of Trentino, Italy next month.
Tomorrow the racing continues with the highly anticipated Short Track starting at 13:00 (GMT +2). Check the start list below to see who’ll be competing to add another potential 75 series points to their tally, and make sure you’re tuned into the livestream when the action begins.
Both series leaders have claimed the max 75 points to extend their lead as far as possible ahead of the final stop of the World Cup. Felix Forissier waited until the final 200m of what might be the most epic Short Track finish of all time to make his move and out-sprint the famously fast Arthur Serrières, while Solenne Billouin was able to bounce back after missing the podium for the first time all season in yesterday’s Full Distance race.
Arthur Serrières and Alizée Paties finished in second to make it four French athletes on the top two steps of the podium, while Denmark’s Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen and Switzerland’s Loanne Duvoisin finished in third. As the penultimate stop in the series, Czech could not have asked for a better finish. If anything it has left us with more questions than answers on who gets it done in the biggest race of them all on September 28. Read the Full Distance race report here, and watch the replay on YouTube.
If this was the warm-up act for XTERRA Worlds, we are in for a wild ride in Trentino next month. From Loanne Duvoisin coming out of nowhere to obliterate the women’s field to Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen almost winning the Full Distance—if not for his 90-second penalty—and the tightest Short Track finish of all time, it’s anybody’s guess who will get it done on the big stage in Trentino.
There is a lot to unpack with a couple of caveats involved, but one thing is undeniable: the penultimate stop delivered on the hype and more, laying the foundation for what might be the most unpredictable World Championship in a long time.
Of all the outstanding performances in the Czech Republic, and there were many, nobody deserves special mention more than the women’s 2023 and now 2024 European Champion, Loanne Duvoisin. This was the first XTERRA race of the season for the Swiss athlete, and she more than proved that she can still hang with XTERRA’s best. After joining the Swiss national triathlon team and focusing purely on road triathlon this season, Duvoisin returned to the dirt for the first time and put 2 minutes on her nearest competition and more than 10 minutes on some of the top contenders predicted to take the title.
The now two-time Euro Champ spent a good section of the bike working with Alizée Paties, and had she been content to keep pace with the reigning World Cup Champ, she may not have picked up the title. Instead, she pushed hard where Paties couldn’t, finding the front of the race on the run and putting her strongest discipline to use to secure the victory. Billouin and Mairhofer may not have been at their best for the Full Distance race, but Duvoisin's performance on Saturday will have given them a lot to think about in Trentino.
Arthur Serrières’s performance in the Full Distance was also a masterclass, displaying all the race experience you’d expect from a World Cup Champion, two-time World Champion, and now four-time European Champion. His ability to pace a race to the absolute tee is second to none, and his lethal run speed is almost detrimental to those who have pushed hard to get space between themselves and the World Champ.
Serrières is not in the running for the World Cup overall, but he has now worked his way back onto the podium despite not racing in the opening race in Taiwan. He is now peaking at just the right time to make it three consecutive World Championship titles.
However, Serrières may have more to worry about than he previously thought as he looks to complete his hat trick in Italy. Up until this point, his biggest threat has been World Cup leader Felix Forissier, and nothing could demonstrate better just how tight the competition between the two Frenchmen is than the final 200 meters of the Short Track race. But now it seems Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen has made the gains necessary to be a genuine threat and worry for both Frenchmen. In the Full Distance race, Sloth Nielsen finished just 61 seconds behind Serrières after serving a 90-second penalty. The Dane will undoubtedly be highly frustrated by what could have been but also more motivated than ever to get it right next time, which should be a big concern for the French pair.
For Felix Forissier, second place in the Full Distance and Short Track should be enough to guarantee him a World Cup title, barring any sort of disaster at the last stop. It is a fortunate result for the Frenchman, as it will reduce the amount of pressure he carries into the last stop. He can guarantee that Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen will try to drain him of all his reserves on the bike, while Arthur Serrières will be holding onto his secret weapon on the run. How he deals with those two forces at the World Champs will make for an incredible race, and if we’ve learned anything from the Short Track race, it might be sheer grit and hunger for the win that pushes him over the line.
Both Aneta Grabmüller and Alizée Paties will be happy with their performances this weekend. For Grabmüller, this is the third time she’s placed 2nd in a Full Distance race this series after taking nearly 3 years off from the sport. Before the season began, she was not considered a top contender, whereas now she has firmly established herself among the best female cross-triathletes in the world and will undoubtedly be listed as a top contender at the 2024 World Championship.
Almost always the first out of the water and often caught fairly late on the bike, this time Grabmüller was only caught on the run. The Czech athlete has proclaimed that her best is yet to come, and it certainly feels that way. She was apparently carrying a slight injury to her Achilles, so fingers crossed that she can shake that within the next 45 days.
A third in the Full Distance and a second in the Short Track is a good trajectory for Alizée Paties. It’s enough to put her just 8 points off reclaiming her second place in the overall rankings from teammate Marta Menditto while giving her a clear indication of how hard she’ll need to push to close the gap at the front of the race to end the season with a World Championship title. She said at the beginning of the season that she’d be prioritising the World Champs title over the World Cup title, and it’s now time to shine. It’s possibly arrived with more competitors than she thought, but the French athlete does have the experience and mentality to deal with both the pressure and the competition at hand.
Unfortunately, one of the most anticipated battles of the weekend simply never materialised. In a complete underestimation of Loanne Duvoisin, many thought the fight for the women’s Euro Championship title would be an epic between World Champ Solenne Billouin and two-time European Champion Sandra Mairhofer. It’s rumoured that Billouin was stung by either a plant or an insect the day before the Full Distance and had been experiencing nausea and fever through the night, while nothing has been heard yet regarding Mairhofer’s performance.
On their day, both Mairhofer and Billouin have the ability to completely take control of races. Mairhofer has won two of the four Full Distance races she’s competed in this season, while the Czech Full Distance was the only time Billouin has not been on the podium the entire season. We may not have seen this classic battle this time, but it’s doubtful it will happen again in Italy as Billouin looks to complete her hat trick of World Championship titles while Mairhofer aims to deliver gold for her home crowd in Italy.
With the dust having settled in Paris, there could still be more wild cards thrown into the mix for the final stop of the series. But as it stands, the 2024 XTERRA World Champs could be one of the most competitive yet.
Felix Forissier, Arthur Serrières, and Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen will all be looking for the tiniest of margins to get them over the line first. For Arthur Serrières, it will be a hat trick. For Felix Forissier, it will be redemption from last year. And for Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen, it will be vindication for the insane effort required to finally break the blue wave of French champions.
For the women, it’s even more. Solenne Billouin, Loanne Duvoisin, Sandra Mairhofer, Alizée Paties, and Aneta Grabmüller all have what it takes. And unlike the World Cup that rewards consistency, the World Champs is about who is better on the day.
Just 47 days remain before the 2024 season is settled once and for all at the XTERRA World Championship race on September 28.
The countdown is over and today World Cup racing returns. In just a matter of hours the next European Champions will be crowned, the Short Track start list will be confirmed, and athletes will have a new set of calculations to make for exactly what is needed from them in the final 3 races to get the best possible ranking in the series.
Sadly, Arthur Forissier will not be on the start line after suffering a broken hand during practice yesterday. It’s a heartbreaking end for the Frenchman who ended his campaign here last year, also via a bike crash, and the hope is now that he will not have to watch from the sidelines for a second World Championship in a row.
The Full Distance race begins today at 13:00 (GMT +2), with live tracking available here and onsite coverage available on Instagram. First European-born male and female will be the next Euro Champs, and the top 30 male and females will qualify to race again in tomorrow’s livestreamed Short Track race.
A 5-hour downpour yesterday has left the trails a little greasy, but with sunshine forecast for the next few days it should be dry conditions come race day.
A lot of pros have been out on the Short Track course, with particular attention being paid to the drop on the bike loop. With a single entry on a raised platform and some awkward roots just after the drop, knowing the right line and committing to it early will be key during the race.
The media team also caught up with Maxim Chané. The Frenchman has been consistent this season and comes into the weekend in 4th overall in the World Cup. He claimed 5th in the Full Distance here last year and would like to improve on that tomorrow, but he is well aware of the stiff competition he’ll be up against.
Unfortunately Arthur Forissier took a big slam on the Short Track course and has been taken to hospital to check on his condition. It was here in Czech last year that his World Cup campaign ended with a broken collar bone and fingers are crossed that history has not repeated itself again. We’ll update on his condition once we know more.
The course is now fully marked and open for athletes to get their lines dialled in.
One athlete hoping to find the perfect line this weekend will be the local hero Aneta Grabmüller. She took the series by storm this year by lighting a fire under the female field when she followed up her 4th place finish in Taiwan with a 2nd place in Greece. She dipped a little in the last few races due to mechanical and health reasons, but she’ll be hoping to put together a season best here in front of the home crowd.
Grabmüller spent a brief few days training with the World Champ recently, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out when the two inevitably meet on the bike course. Billouin has all but secured the World Cup title if she can keep her body and bike together for the final stretch, affording herself the chance to focus purely on bagging a third World Championship title in a row.
Billouin may have almost wrapped up the World Cup, but the Frenchwoman will not have overlooked adding a European Championship title to her cabinet. The big question however, is if she can beat the only athlete to have beaten her (twice) in Full Distance racing this year - Italy’s Sandra Mairhoifer.
More to come as the week unfolds.
Perfect training weather of about 25°C is what athletes have been arriving to as Prachatice gets ready to host the biggest race on the 2024 EMEA Tour and the penultimate stop of the World Cup. Barring a handful of names from APAC and the Americas, the start list reads almost exactly like the line up expected at the World Championship next month.
On an elite level, it’s the clash of the champions with multiple current, previous, and prospective champions on the hunt for titles and series points, while the event has also smashed its record for best overall participation numbers in its double decade history.
The stakes are incredibly high with so many top contenders in with a chance of taking maximum points and glory through both races. Felix Forissier and Loanne Duvoisin arrive as the defending Euro Champions—Duvoison looking to see if she can still hang with XTERRA’s best after focusing on road triathlon in 2024 while Forissier looks to lock down the World Cup title for the men. But they can both expect a tough battle from the likes of the World World Champion Solenne Billouin, 2x Euro Champion Sandra Mairhofer, World Cup #2 Jens Emil Sloth Nielsen, and the always dangerous World Champ and 3x Euro Champ Arthur Serrières.
Both courses are looking worthy of an event of this magnitude, with the Short Track featuring a new drop that will make for quality racing and viewing, while the series’ only point-to-point bike section will feature a few new changes in the final 5K.
T-3 days until we go racing, with more updates to come from here in Prachatice.
The penultimate stop of the 2024 World Cup series, with three of the biggest titles in the sport still at stake. When the World Cup touches down in Czech, one of the oldest and most notorious races on the XTERRA circuit, it will come with all the weight and pressure of a World Championship event.
While some will be looking to lock down the series ahead of the final stop, others will be looking to disrupt it entirely. But many will be focused purely on top regional honours as the most contested region in off-road triathlon goes to battle for the title of XTERRA European Champion. Felix Forissier will likely be feeling the most pressure, simultaneously looking to defend his European Championship title while also doing enough to deny a charging Jens Emil Sloth Nieslen any chance of comeback in the final stop. Solenne Billouin has all but wrapped up her World Cup title, but she'll know that what lies in front of her is the opportunity to cement her legacy with the 3 biggest titles possible in a single year. Both have what it takes, but they’ll be up against the toughest start list the series has seen so far, with all the marbles to play for.
The second of three back-to-back double feature stops, 175 points will be up for grabs with the Full Distance race preceding the Short Track race. Qualification for the Short Track race will be based on the Full Distance results, meaning athletes will need to find the perfect balance between taking enough risks to score big in the Full Distance while also ensuring they make the cut for the Short Track. With only the top 30 eligible to race the fast format, any sort of mechanical or crash will be detrimental. Check out the video below for what lies ahead on the course in both formats, top contenders to watch, and what it means for those fighting for the top step. Also, make sure you’re subscribed to the YouTube channel to get notified to watch the Short Track race live.
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