Allen and Slack take out event titles

International couple Ben Allen (Australia) and his partner, Jacqui Slack (Great Britain), have won this year's XTERRA Rotorua.

More than 2000 competitors, including some of New Zealand's best multisport athletes, took part in the event at Lake Tikitapu at the weekend.

It was Allen's fourth win in a row on the global XTERRA Series, having recently taken out wins in Guam, Philippines and Saipan this year.

But it was no easy victory, with New Zealand triathlon representative Graham O'Grady (Kinloch) leading out of the 1km swim leg by 30 seconds, with Allen, a former Australian surf life saving champion, hot on his heels.

O'Grady, a road specialist, found the going tough early on in the ride and the off-road experts hit the front, with Scott Thorne (Hamilton) and Allen tussling for position on the technical trails through the scenic Redwood Forest.

The race to stay in medal contention was being played out between O'Grady, Mark Leishman (Rotorua) and Jan Francke (Czech Republic)

Halfway through the 26km ride it was Thorne who put the hammer down, opening up a gap over Allen, heading on to the run, by 1 minute.

But a calf injury that nearly ruled Thorne out of the race, took its toll and before halfway round the 11km course, Allen had the lead back and was putting time into all but one of his competitors. It was O'Grady, who, after a tough mountain bike ran himself from fourth to second place. Thorne held on for third.

"I was running scared, I knew Graham was a great runner, I had to push it hard the entire race." explained an elated Allen after the race.

"This is a special race to win, I was here last year and got fourth but I loved it, it is one of the best races in the world. I had to come back with Jacqui and I'm so pleased I did, we couldn't have asked for a better result."

Slack had things more her own way in the women's race, leading the field from start to finish and taking the title by five minutes.

"I didn't know the girls I was racing against very well, so I just had to go as fast as I could for the whole race. Fortunately it was enough to hold on for the win."

The race for silver and bronze was close, with only two minutes separating second through fourth place.

NZ Mountain Biking representative Anika Smail (Nelson) improved her fourth place from last year to take second this year, while Elizabeth Orchard (Auckland) repeated her bronze-medal performance from 2011, and Rotorua's Nic Leary finished fourth in a time of 2:29:55.