Lizzie Orchard Crowned Asian Tour Champion

The first of the major Xterra World Tours has come to a close and New Zealand’s own Lizzie Orchard has snatched the Professional Asian Tour title.

Winning the NZ Championship (also doubled at National ITU Cross Tri Champs), the Asia Pacific Championship, and Philippines race, Lizzie also placed second in Japan and at the finale race in Malaysia to round out a stellar season.

‘It’s more than I was hoping for’ says Lizzie, but with 9^th Elite at ITU World Champs last year and 5^th Professional at Xterra World Champs she’s becoming a force to be reckoned with.
 
The Tour standings are calculated using athletes best 3 placings, the finale carries double points and is therefore a favourite race to attend.

‘Malaysia is very much a cross between an Xterra and an adventure race, the bike includes a long steep uphill section that sees you pushing for quite a while and the run has a mountain to negotiate. The dense Jungle means you’ve got to keep an eye on where the route goes next’.

Lizzie enjoyed the Malaysian race so much in 2015 that she was inspired to focus on the tour this year.
‘ I’m so happy the results are coming, it’s nice to know that hard work pays off. I’m getting more experience at speeches, interviews, and TV crews now too which is great as I used to be so nervous !’.
 

Asia pacific. Photo courtesy of Paddi S.

The Pan-Am and European Tours are just heating up now, races being held over Summer in the northern hemisphere.  Lizzie hopes to get to a couple of these for her lead into ITU Cross Tri  and Xterra World Champs in October/November.

‘Work is kindly being really flexible, allowing me to take time off to get to events. I’m hoping with a growing pile of great results I can collaborate with sponsors to help get me to even more races. Off Road Triathlon is such a great sport, no wonder its popularity is growing all over the world.  
 
Wherever Lizzie is off to next, she’ll certainly have eyes on her at the start line.
 
Xterra Asian Tour Results (top 5):
Women: 1 - Lizzie Orchard (NZL), 2 - Jacqui Slack (GBR), 3 - Carina Wasle (SWI), 4 - Mieko Carey (USA), 5 - Renata Bucher (SWI). Also NZ’ers Sarah Backler 7^th.
Men: 1 – Ben Allen (AUS), 2 – Bradley Weiss (RSA), 3 - Takahiro Ogasawara (JPN), 4 – Brodie Gardner (AUS), 5 – Joe Miller (PHI). Also NZer’s Olly Shaw 6^th, Braden Currie 8^th, Sam Osborne 10^th, Kieran McPherson 15^th, Cameron Paul 17^th, Alex Roberts 18^th.