Lucy Gossage, Mauricio Mendez win debut PATAGONMAN Xtreme Triathlon

Chief Correspondent

Xtreme Triathlon’s debut in the stunning surroundings of Patagonia, Chile

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Fourth place for Mark Livesey in men’s race too

A year ago (HERE), I first heard about a new XTRI race – PATAGONMAN Xtreme Triathlon (www.patagonman.com) – to take place in Patagonia, Chile. It clearly struck a chord with many, including Great Britain’s (now 13-times iron-distance winner…), Lucy Gossage, who was immediately interested, noticing my Twitter post at the time:

Barely a week later, December 2018 was sorted – and Lucy was ‘in’. As to whether it will indeed constitute a ‘retirement’ race, well, I doubt it!

Fast forward almost a year and pre-race (see video below), Lucy described the prospect of PATAGONMAN as “I wouldn’t even call it a race…a long day out in probably the most spectacular place I’ve ever been… a celebration of everything I’ve been fortunate enough to have in my life.” Would it live up to that on ‘race’ day? It certainly did.

Finishing sixth overall and the first female by a considerable margin, here is Lucy’s post-race Twitter post. You can be pretty sure that a forthcoming blog post on her website – will be well worth reading, as always, when it arrives in due course. Once she’s had time to recover and reflect.

I was also able to message Lucy last night post-race, who briefly added, “Felt a bit stupid not bringing trail shoes and hydration system. I thought they had exaggerated how hard it was. They didn’t! Unbelievably beautiful. Best destination race you could imagine”

The men’s event had real quality at the front, with first place being taken by former XTERRA World Champion, Mauricio Mendez (MEX), with multiple NORSEMAN Xtreme Triathlon champion, Allan Hovda (NOR) in second place. A strong race too from Great Britain’s Mark Livesey, who finished in fourth.

Here’s just a clip of that run course that Lucy mentioned, courtesy of Mark’s wife Caroline, who was his support crew on the day – a week after her own race at IRONMAN Mar del Plata.

Much like Lucy, with post-race comments of “By for the best place I have ever raced”, confirm that PATAGONMAN was something well above another new triathlon.

https://twitter.com/MarkLiveseyTri/status/1072020172150587392

The event also had UK, mainstream coverage well above the norm, with the participation of BBC Breakfast’s Louise Minchin. A member of the GB Age-Group team for several years now, Louise completed the event in 16 hours and 34 minutes, speaking live about it on BBC Breakfast this morning. She’s no slouch in the water either, clocking almost exactly the same time as Lucy Gossage.

PATAGONMAN Xtreme Triathlon, Patagonia, Chile – Sunday 9th December 2018
3.8km / 180km / 42.2km

MEN

1st – Mauricio Mendez (MEX) – 8:52:02
2nd – Allan Hovda (NOR) – 9:12:11
3rd – Jose Luis Rodriguez (CHI) – 9:38:30
4th – Mark Livesey (GBR) – 10:07:29
5th – Romain Babin (CHI) – 10:18:15

WOMEN

1st – Lucy Gossage (GBR) – 10:21:21 (6th Overall)
2nd – Javiera Elisa Gainza Acevedo (CHI) – 12:15:01
3rd – Livia Mendes (BRA) – 12:23:57
4th – Maricruz Larrea (CHI) – 12:38:09
5th – Kristyna Skupienova (CZE) – 12:43:20
6th – Jo Davies (GBR) – 13:09:38

13th – Louise Minchin (GBR) – 16:34:35

CLICK HERE FOR FULL RESULTS

John Levison
Written by
John Levison
TRI247's Chief Correspondent, John has been involved in triathlon for well over 30 years, 15 of those writing on these pages, whilst he can also be found commentating for events across the UK.
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