Big changes in Vaseline Xterra

Participants to this year’s Vaseline Men XTERRA Philippines 2014 Championships this March 15 can expect a big change in the race course after the organizing Sunrise Events Inc. decided to modify its venues.
Princess Galura of Sunrise Events Inc. said that because of the huge number of triathletes they are expecting to join in the biggest off-road triathlon race in the country, they decided to look for a much bigger venue.
This year, the starting area will be at the Sea Front Beach Resort, where both the swim portion and the first transition area will be located, while the second transition and the finish line will be at the Lilo-an Elementary School.
The race will have two transition areas for the bike portion so that participants won’t cross the national highway to avoid accident and traffic congestion.
Galura said that there will be two loops for the mountain bike portion, each loop consists of 16k to complete the 32k distance while the swim portion will be a 1.5k race and the trail run in 10k.
This year the participants will only cross the national highway once en-route to the trail run.
“It will surely keep the participants safe and give more convenience to the motorists passing the area. We don’t just prevent accidents, we also want to ease down traffic,” Galura told Cebu Daily News.
Last year, the bike portion has only one loop and crossed the highway twice to reach the start and finish line at the Sea Front Beach Resort. This caused heavy traffic while participants had to dodge passing vehicles in both directions.
This is the second time that the biggest off-road triathlon has moved to another venue. It’s inaugural staging was held at the private subdivision in Amara also in Lilo-an before moving to Sea Front Beach Resort last year.
Galura also revealed that last year’s pro category contenders including two time defending champion Ben Allen of Australia and women’s pro division champion Lesley Patterson of Scotland and other noted pros such as Sam Gardner, Matthew O’Halloran of Canada, Rory Downie of Scotland, Bradley Sean Weiss of South Africa, Renata Bucher of Switzerland, Jacqui Slack from Great Britain, and Carina Wasle of South Africa have already signed up to join this year’s race.