A week removed from winning his first XTERRA at Motatapu Olly Shaw has turned his attention to the “off-road to Langkawi” in his chase for the XTERRA Asia-Pacific Tour title.

“I’ve got five weeks now until XTERRA New Zealand so it’s full on with the training,” said Shaw, who lives in Rotorua. “I have no racing between now and then and am focusing 100% on the XTERRA Asia-Pacific Tour with New Zealand followed by the Asia-Pacific Championship in Australia and then the Tour finale in Malaysia.”

Despite not having collected any points yet, Shaw and countless others who have New Zealand, Australia, and Malaysia on their schedule have just as good a chance as anyone else at the tour title.  That is because while the tour includes six races – three of which are already in the books (Japan, Philippines, and Saipan) – pros and amateurs count just their best three scores (and the finale in Malaysia counts double).

If his performance in Motatapu last weekend is any indication, Shaw is one to watch out for. Here he tells us about his winning day…

“It feels great to finally get my first win. I have been chasing it for the past few years and after going close a few times it was nice to nail one. The conditions on race day were perfect. A cool morning turned into a stunning day with perfect temperatures and light winds. The course was running fast after dry temperatures for a few days which made for exciting racing! I’m all recovered now. Motatapu is one of the hardest and longest XTERRA’s in the world so it always takes a bit longer to recover from then the other XTERRA’s I do, so I took it easy for a good week to make sure there’s no long term fatigue.”

Takahiro Ogasawara leads the men’s APAC Tour title chase with three scoring races and 247 points while reigning XTERRA Japan champion Mieko Carey is in the lead of the women’s tour chase with 272 points.

Next up on the XTERRA Asia-Pacific Tour is XTERRA New Zealand (April 16, 2016), followed a week later by the XTERRA Asia-Pacific Championship in Australia (April 23, 2016) and then the tour finale at XTERRA Malaysia (May 7, 2016).

Here’s a look at the elite APAC Tour elite standings after three…

PL NAME PTS
1 Takahiro Ogasawara, JPN 247 2 Brodie Gardner, AUS 182 3 Charlie Epperson, USA 144 4 Joe Miller, PHI 131 5 Kaon Cho, KOR 128 6 Cameron Oneal, USA 116 7 Courtney Atkinson, AUS 100 8 Bradley Weiss, RSA 100 9 Cedric Lassonde, FRA 90 10 Ben Allen, AUS 90 11 Taro Shirato, JPN 69 12 Taylor Charlton, AUS 63 13 Hsieh Jason, HKG 58 14 Michal Bucek, SVK 58 15 Barry Lee, MAS 45 PL NAME TOT 1 Mieko Carey, USA 272 2 Lizzie Orchard, NZL 190 3 Carina Wasle, AUT 100 4 Jacqui Slack, GBR 90 5 Renata Bucher, SUI 82 6 Belinda Hadden, AUS 75

2016 XTERRA Asia-Pacific Tour Amateur Standings

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