Ontario’s Karsten Madsen topped 2008 Canadian Olympian Paul Tichelaar and 2012 Olympian and current Ironman sensation Brent McMahon with an almost perfect 2-1-1 placing on the swim, mountain bike and trail run legs to win the XTERRA Victoria Championship.

With this win in the sixth of 10 races race on the Pan American Tour, Madsen advanced to first place on the XTERRA Pan American Tour with 322 points to former leader Josiah Middaugh’s 267 points.

Madsen came out of the water with McMahon and was first to leave transition and never looked back. Madsen finished in 2:10:51 with a 2:28 margin of victory on Tichelaar, 5:11 on 3rd-place Kieran McPherson and 5:39 on 4th-place McMahon.

Madsen’s win was his second in a row on the XTERRA Pan American Tour and comes after his victory at the ‘Mine over Matter” XTERRA in Milton, Ontario.

“It's amazing to win my second major XTERRA title!” said Madsen. “I took the swim hard and got out of the water with Brent. I took the bike safe as this course was very demanding and super technical. The run was also super technical with a lot of climbing and steep, hard descents. I’m incredibly overjoyed to come away with the win today. And I'm still in shock that I'm now leading the Pan-American tour.”

Katie Button eked out a victory over top rival Zoe Dawson by virtue of a women's-best 25:42 swim that earned her a 1:40 advantage on Dawson and a women’s-best 1:18:27 mountain bike leg that added 1:13 to her margin over Dawson. Button then hung on with a women’s 5th-best 51:36 trail run that gave back 1:51 to Dawson but brought her to the finish with a 1:10 margin of victory.

While this was Button’s first on the XTERRA Pan American Tour, her 75 points put her 12th on the list, 130 points behind points leader Sabrina Gobbo of Brazil.

Button finished in 2:37:43 with a 1:10 margin of victory over British Columbia local Dawson, 7:52 on 3rd-place Danelle Kabush and 19:05 on 4th-place Jaime Brede.

XTERRA Victoria
Durrance Lake, B.C. Canada
July 10, 2016
S 1.5k / MTB 24k / YR 9.2k

Results

Men

1. Karsten Madsen (CAN) 2:10:51
2. Paul Tichelaar (CAN) 2:13:19
3. Kieran McPherson (NZL) 2:16:02
4. Brent McMahon (CAN) 2:16:30
5. Nate Youngs (USA) 2:20:29

Women

1. Katie Button (CAN) 2L37:43
2. Zoe Dawson (CAN) 2:38:53
3. Danelle Kabush (CAN) 2:45:35
4. Jaime Brede (USA) 2:58:48
5. Lisa Leonard (USA) 3:04:44