Wenzhou Outdoor Challenge
Team NZ Adventure Win First Time Out in China
Team NZ Adventure / 20.04.2014
Day 3 started with an orienteer through a old traditional village. Each team member was provided with a map, and they were allowed to split up to find a series of Check Points where they had to record numbers written on the faces of buildings with its matching photo on the map reverse. Although it went well, the team lost about 4-5mins on Thule in this section, and about 2.5mins to Redbull.
Once on the 16km run Team NZ Adventure were able to regain time. The start of the run was flat through a farming village. The real fun began once the team got on the technical hills where they caught Red Bull early on. The run ended with a long decent into a bay with lots of fishing boats & a sandy run across the beach. Thule were in the teams sights managing to finish the run 45seconds infront of Team NZ Adventure.
Due to poor weather, the 2hr sea kayak stage was cancelled which mostly teams were happy about. Athletes boarded a bus for a 1hr drive to where the race would restart with a 55km 1200m elevation gain mountain bike on a mixture of sealed and unsealed roads. This was a hot climb and took teams longer than expected.
The last leg involved a 3km flat run to a wall that athletes had to climb (by lifting and pulling their team mates over) to get to the finish line. With a time of 4hours 25minutes, the team finished second approximately six minutes behind the stage winner Thule.
Still in the overall lead, Team NZ Adventure were happy with the days result and are looking forward to the final stage tomorrow. They currently have a comfortable lead of 28 minutes to Red Bull in 2nd place.
Day 4
As Bob, Dougal and Jess waited below with other teams, Braden kicked off Day Four’s mass start with a 70m abseil off a swing bridge followed by a 200m swim to the team kayaks for a 16km paddle. It was a bit chaotic as swimmers spotted their teams & did a wet entry into their boats. But it was not long before teams paddled away and settled into a giant wash train behind Red Bull, which remained that way for the large majority of the paddle to TA1. The pace was comfortable. A break away would have been very challenging on the flat water and no team was willing to sacrifice themselves unnecessarily at the front.
Team NZ Adventure headed out onto the 24.5km hilly mountain bike that rode over a mix of gravel and sealed road, in first place. They were soon joined by Redbull, then Thule. Team NZ Adventure had a comfortable overall lead on Red Bull in second place so took a more conservative approach on the bike, keeping just behind Red Bull & Thule who were racing hard to determine the 2nd and 3rd overall placings. Unfortunately Team Red Bull got a flat tyre half way up the hill and therefore were left behind. Again Team NZ Adventure who were working well as a team, kept things comfortable sticking just behind Thule, who were lucky to get flat on a downhill a couple hundred metres from the next TA, so no time was lost as they were able to coast in.
Neck & neck heading out of TA it was time to crank things up on the 9km trail run to the finish and determine the stage win for the day. Both teams were running well over the technical terrain, up & down short pitches through the bamboo forest. Half way through the run Dougal began to get gut cramps he knew well from previous races in China and had to ease up a touch. Bob & Jess both hoped on tow behind Braden who powered the team forward down the finish stretch at a fierce pace. Thule managed to hold Team NZ Adventure out, taking the stage win by 20 seconds, yet unable to gain the 8minutes on Red Bull keeping them in 3rd place.
Final Wrap
It was great to have New Zealand teams secure the top two spots, and other kiwis, Ohakune based Marcel Hagner finish as part of team Thule in 3rd, Wanaka based Pete Smallfield as part of team Moxi Gear in 6th and Hasting’s Luke Osborne, Wairoa’s Sam Manson and Wanaka’s Ailsa Rollinston and Hamish Flemming who formed team Oso Negro in 7th.
The team is proud to have won their first race together and look forward to a future of representing New Zealand in world class staged adventure racing events.
The team will race next at the Pengzhou Adventure Challenge back in China late May.
SleepMonsters
