Great success of the first series XTERRA EUROPEAN TOUR

HLUBOKA NAD VLTAVOU September 19 (PROTEXT) - American JamieWhitmore has reached hat trick of victories at XTERRA races bywinning in Titisee in Germany. She became the overall winner ofthe XTERRA EUROPEAN TOUR 2003 series in its first year afterachieving three victories. XTERRA off road multisport comprisesopen water swimming, cycling on a mountain bike in an extremeterrain and cross country running.

"It is a great achievement for me and I am very happy becauseI love Europe, its people and culture", said Whitmore, who comesfrom California. Royce Kortekaas from Netherlands triumphed inthe series among the elite men even though he only crossed thefinish line on the fourth place in the last race in Germany. Thefirst place in Germany went to the French athlete Nicolas Lebrun.The German race was the toughest and longest in the series,taking athletes carrying their bikes on their shoulder all theway onto the ski-jump bridge where the ski-jumping world cup willtake place in December.

XTERRA as a very young sport has become a great successduring its eight year existence in America. The first year ofXTERRA EUROPEAN TOUR has shown the potential of XTERRA to conquerEurope as well.

Premiere of the European tour in the sport, which has beenreturning for annual World Championships to the place of itsorigin on the island of Maui in the Hawaii Islands for eightyears, was a great success. 1200 athletes of all categories andage groups have taken part in the races in the Czech Republic,the Netherlands and Germany, among them elite professionals suchas Jamie Whitmore, last year's World Champion Candy Angle, WorldChampion in winter triathlon and XTERRA specialist Nicolas Lebrunfrom France, World Champion in winter triathlon Marc Ruhe fromLiechtenstein, bronze medalist in triathlon from Sydney OlympicsJan Rehula, World Champion in cross country skiing Martin Koukal,triathlon legend Rob Barel from the Netherlands. "Many countries,e.g. Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain, Italy, Hungary andSlovakia, have shown their interest in organizing an XTERRAqualifier race in the next year" said the executive manager ofXTERRA Europe Michal Pilousek.

"We are very glad that XTERRA has captured Europe too and nowoffers to hundreds of athletes race experience as well as chanceto meet people of the same tune and discover beautiful placessuch as the woods surrounding the historical castle in the Czechrepublic, sand dunes in Kijkduijn, or steep hills ofSchwarzwald" added Dave Nicholas, vice president of the TEAMUNLIMITED, which is the founder and owner of the XTERRA brand.

XTERRA now moves to the USA for the races of NISSAN XTERRAUSA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES.

The XTERRA worldwide series will culminate at the NISSANXTERRA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, which will be held on the island ofMaui in the state of Hawaii on 26th October. South African ConradStoltz and American Candy Angle will be defending their titles.The winner takes 20.000USD in each category.

Overall points standing of XTERRA EUROPEAN TOUR 2003:

Men:

1. Royce Kortekaas (Netherlands) 247 p

2. Marc Ruhe (Lichtenstein) 219 p

3. Nicolas Lebrun (France) 200 p

4. Ronny Dietz (Germany) 145 p

5. Martin Pejsar (Czech Republic) 110 p.

Women:

1. Jamie Whitmore (USA) 300 p

2. Ute Schäfer (Germany) 246 p

3. Katrin Helmcke (Germany) 201 p

4. Ariane Gutknecht (Switzerland) 138 p

5. Joke Keuning (Netherlands) 99 p.

Tomáš Nohejl, XTERRA European office - press release

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