Butch, Mieko survive XTERRA World

 Former champions surrendered to the unforgiving new course at the 2011 XTERRA World Championship, but not the CNMI’s Mieko Carey and Butch Sublemente.

Carey and Sublemente survived the lung-busting triathlon race that saw four-time XTERRA World champion Conrad Stoltz of South Africa and three-time winner Melanie McQuaid of Canada quit in the last leg. The 33-year-old Carey finished yesterday’s event in Kapalua, Maui, Hawaii in three hours, 20 minutes, and 42 seconds to place No. 16 out of the 23 pros in the women’s division. Sublemente entered the men’s 35 to 39 age group and submitted 3:41:07 to finish at No. 43 among 68 finishers in his division.

Stoltz, who won the men’s title from 2007 to 2010, withdrew midway of the 6.1-mile run leg due to asthma, while McQuaid, who held the women’s plum from 2004 to 2006 and was runner-up to Shonny Vanlandingham last year, pulled the plug also in the run leg due to fatigue. Austria’s Michael Weiss and American Lesley Paterson ruled this year’s race, timing in at 2:27:00 and 2:45:59, respectively.

Rounding out the Top 3 in the men’s were Dan Hugo (2:27:33) of the U.S. and Spain’s Eneko Llanos (2:28:26). Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong also joined the pro division and was in strong second in his XTERRA World debut with mile to go in the 18.3-mile bike leg when he crashed, costing him precious minutes. An exhausted Armstrong slowed down in the run leg, dropping him to 20th place among 39 pros and 23rd overall with a time of 2:36:59.

Carey ranked No. 205 among 598 finishers. She timed in at 25:24 in the 1-mile swim at the rough waters of D.T. Flemings Beach, 1:53:45 in the up-and-down slopes of West Maui Mountains with more than 3,000 feet of elevation, and 1:01:33 in the run leg that brought runners to long dirt trails of Oleander forests, 60-foot high ironwood evergreens and mountain lake at the 650-foot level. Sublemente placed No. 323 overall, tallying 36:32 in the swim leg, 1:58:49 in the bike, and 1:05:46 in the run.

Though the more than 615 participants in yesterday’s race were allowed to test the new course when they arrived in Hawaii, majority of them still struggled on race day and 17 did not finish, including 2011 XTERRA Saipan Championship participant Carina Wasle, who quit in the run leg. Triathletes raced in a 90 degree Fahrenheit weather in Maui north’s Kapalua Resort, which took over the hosting rights of this year’s XTERRA World from the south’s Makena Beach & Golf Resort.

“It’s just a damn hard course, a death march,” Armstrong was quoted by the Associated Press report.