AS the rain continued pouring on Saturday, spectators thought the triathlon champion would emerge after three hours of the 1.5-kilometer swim, 30-kilometer mountain biking and 10-kilometer trail run. But they were wrong.
Xterra 2002 Saipan champion, Mike Vine, a 28-year-old professional athlete from British Columbia, Canada did it only in 2 hours, 36 minutes and 23 seconds.
“I was worried about the heat,” said Vine, who was apparently relieved by the rain when asked what was the thing he dreaded most in the competition that drew in scores of professional and amateur athletes on the island from Canada, Australia, Japan, South Africa, Malaysia and the United States including Guam and Saipan.
In conquering Saipan’s terrain through pure brawn, athletes all the more realized that “mother nature was (their) greatest competitor,” said Janet Clark, Xterra’s senior vice president for marketing.
Organizers of the six-year-old international multi-sport Xterra with the help of local officials from the Marianas Visitors Authority made it sure that athletes would have the awesome experience of the Saipan obstacle.
The triathlon race
The triathlon race started with a two-lap swim of a 750-meter triangular course off Micro Beach at exactly 7 a.m. From the swim, athletes transitioned to the bike following Micro Beach Road across the main highway and up toward the Navy Hill.
From the hill, competitors began climbing the 1,545-foot Mt. Tapochau, the highest point on the island. A single track loop section was included in the climb that rewarded them with spectacular views south and west over the island from the top.
Bikers then descended on gravel road to a right turn that took them north and out past Magellan Club. At the end of the road, a high outlook signaled the start of a single track that twisted through dark jungle and farmlands and past cliffs and caves until they emerged near King Fisher golf course.
From there, a gravel road took them through the commonwealth government complex which included a steep off-road descent then finally hitting the road again in Chinatown and returned through Garapan to Micro Beach.
From the beach again, bikers metamorphosed into runners, took a trail past Smiling Cove Marina to the end of the park, crossed the road and began an uphill section on jeep trail to the back of the Commonwealth Health Center. From there, they climbed the middle of the island, dropped into a natural gully and heavy jungle following the trail for under two miles until they reached the bike path.
Under the umbrella of the rain forest canopy, athletes encountered huge boulders, World War II relics and climbed up and into a series of caves. The trail ended behind the Saipan Botanical Gardens, which they run through and past the Katori Shrine and ruins of the Japanese hospital and prison. The course hit the beach again with a half mile run to the finish in soft sand.
Thanks for the rain
It was almost after 70 minutes, when Vine was followed by the Xterra female triathlete champ. Twenty-five-year-old Jamie Whitmore of Sacramento, California completed the race cycle in 3 hours, 5 minutes and 50 seconds. But she was nine and a half minutes ahead of the other nine female competitors.
And guess what Whitmore thanked for? Just like Vine, it was the rain. “I just had to thank God for the rain. I just had an (idea) that I will cool down somehow when the rain just came and came and came,” Whitmore said minutes after she swept the finish line.
Vine and Whitmore, during the night’s awarding ceremony at Pacific Islands Club, had more to thanked for.
Vine thanked the people of Saipan for the warm welcome and the great accommodation. “I’m impressed with Saipan. It’s a small island but with a great bunch of people,” he said.
He also realized that pushing through with his decision to go to Saipan and join the competition was indeed a blessing. “I’m just really down away (from) Saipan. It was really a last-minute decision for me. It was a two and a half-day travel and I spent two nights at the airport. When I got here, I felt really wasted. But great things happened after that,” said the champ who, delivers pizza in British Columbia and is into Xterra race for four years now.
Whitmore for her part thanked her husband Courtney who joined the relay triathlon race category and got her started into mountain biking.
Whitmore, who was just a one-time participant of the 2001 Xterra-USA series was grateful for the unending help of her family. “They are probably my biggest financial supporters,” she said.
She also expressed appreciation over Saipan people’s hospitality. “When we were dying out there, you guys really helped us.”
Vine and Whitmore each received a cash price of $2,200 and will have the chance to join the regional and international Xterra competitions.
Xterra-Saipan kicked off the Xterra 2002 global competitions that will be held in Japan, the U.S., Australia, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Czech Republic. The Nissan Xterra USA championship will be held in Incline Village, Nevada on Sept. 22. The Nissan Xterra World Championship will be held in Maui, Hawaii on Oct. 27.
Team Unlimited, a Hawaii-based lifestyle sports marketing firm, is the owner and producer of Xterra off-road multi-sport brand products. It has produced more than 150 television shows and won three Emmy and 16 Telly Awards.
Xterra shall return
Acting MVA’s Managing Director Vicky I. Benavente sure knows that Northern Marianas’s tourism industry badly needs a break. And she hopes that by bringing Xterra to Saipan, that blessed rain will pour into the industry too.
“It’s not the last time that the Xterra will be here in the Marianas. It will be many, many times. We have here a tremendous exposure…many magazines and TV stations are here on the island. This will be an excellent break for the industry,” she said.
The Saipan-Xterra event will soon be televised as a half-hour feature show for Japan cable and the Outdoor Life Network in the U.S. It will also be shown on Saipan’s Marianas Cable Vision.
And who knows, Benavente says this could be the start “for people to know that Saipan exists and is the best place to go for a healthy outdoor life”
And watch out. Benavente may not just be hoping but is already saying something realistic.
Xterra President Tom Kiely has this to say for Saipan: “”We’ve got it…this is the best race course (we) have ever seen. This is the warmest welcome that we’ve ever received. And we hope that we will come back here next year and for many years to come.”
