Armstong leading XTERRA Worlds halfway through bike

Triathlete magazine editor Julia Polloreno is at the XTERRA World Championships. Follow her @juliapolloreno

Armstrong exited the water just 10 seconds behind a lead pack of four men and trailed the leader Ivan Rana by 47 seconds a few miles into the ride.

He made quick work of that gap. Twelve minutes later he was within 7 seconds of ITU stars Jan Frodeno, the defending Olympic champion, and Ivan Rana. Armstrong sat in third position for only a few minutes. He bridged the gap to the leaders and quickly dropped the draft-legal athletes before opening a 44 second gap in a matter of minutes.

At mile 6 of 18, the order was Armstrong, Olivier Marceau, Ivan Rana, Jan Frodeno, Dan Hugo, Michael Weiss, Eneko Llanos and Conrad Stoltz.

With Stoltz 1:45 behind Armstrong, Weiss, a former Olympic mountain biker, accelerated through the field and closed the gap to Armstrong.

Update: Weiss eventually caught and passed Armstrong. They left T2 in 1st and 2nd.

Written by Aaron Hersh. Follow him @triathletetech.