Team OrionHealth Adventure

Teams have completed the formality of the final 3km run through the city of Al Ain, to cross the finish line of the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge 2009. 

 

Victorius Kiwi's Fill the podium! First placed Qasr Al Sarab(left) and second placegetters ADCO NZ (right)

Despite taking a slight wrong turn on the final run, the victorius Qasr Al Sarab team of Richard and Elina Usher, Marcel Hagnar and Nathan Fa'avae were first accross the line and overall by a 35 minute margin to continue their three year domination of the Abu Dhabi event and take home US$40'000 in prize money. Close on their heels were ADCO NZ captained by Fleur Pawsey, with Gordon Blythen, Nathan Peterson and Stuart Lynch. And in third place were the French team Vibram Sport2000 with Kiwi Dwarne Farley who has just experienced his first Abu Dhabi Challenge.

After all the teams had completed the run it was back onto the buses for the 160km drive back to the city of Abu Dhabi where it all begain 6 days ago. Asking Stu Lynch at the race headquarters hotel what had been the highlight of the race he initially replied "the hot shower I just had!", then went on to explain that really the highlight was being part of such a motivated and focused team. "Even when we lost our second SI card of the race in the desert, and got stung with our third 5 minute penalty making it a very small gap to the French team behind us, we were able to turn it into something constructive and just get on with the race in a positive frame of mind. The team just took a step back, and said 'right, this is what we need to do now to make the most of this situation' and we just went out and did it"

Teams must now face getting bikes, shoes and gear cleaned and packed up before the not-to-be-missed gourmet dinner and prizegiving tonight, before their weary bodies can finally enjoy the comforts of a soft bed!

Read 0 Comments... >>

Kiwi teams solidified their respective holds on first and second in the final mornings trekking and ropes stage. Richard Usher's Qasr Al Sarab and Stu's ADCO NZ showed their class finishing the section together more than 10 minutes clear of the chasing teams.

Stu sent me a message from the transition after the trek on the summit of Jabel Hafeet "Finished the mountain run in good time, put a few more minutes on Vibram Sport2000. Worked our butts off though! Now just have to survive the ride to town. Having ice creams at the rest stop while waiting for the rest of the teams to come in, then we restart onto the bikes at 11am"

That restart had to be put back to 11:30am as some teams took longer than expected on the trek leg, including Saloman Crested Butte who lost a place when they made a navigational error in the dark.

Teams have just completed the bike ride down from the summit into the centre of town, not without incident though! Stu and his team will have been thanking their lucky stars they have extended their lead over 3rd place after it coming down to within a few minutes yesteday - they got a puncture on the final ride! Stu said they "managed to get it fixed quickly, and caught up to the main bunch right at the end of the stage after working verry hard, again! Now just a 3km run to go, will be easy for once...we hope!"

Teams will be looking forward to the end of this epic race, and no doubt there will be some serious (and very well deserved!) celebrations in the Kiwi camps at prizegiving tonight!!

Read 0 Comments... >>

I just briefly spoke with Stu at the finish of the Day 5 biking stage. After losing 2 minutes on the first section of the ride they completed the second section leg in phenomonal time, putting in a huge effort and taking 15.5 minutes out of 3rd placed Vibram Sport2000.

"We had a really good second part of the ride - Vibram Sport2000 used skinny tyres, which while being advantageous earlier in the race on the hard, fast road surfaces proved to be a poor choice for the sandy conditions in this bike leg. They really struggled in the soft sand drifts accross the road, and lost a lot of time. We thought long and hard about this before the race, and after some team discussions went out and bought some 'fat' tyres specially - looks like it has paid off now! All teams had to push in places, but for some of it our fat tyres and low pressure (we were running only 20psi) allowed us to keep peddling through where Vibram had to dismount. We finished more than 15 minutes ahead, which puts us 22 minutes up overall going into the last day."

It has been a long hot ride, with ADCO and probably many other teams running out of water along the way. Stu said he drank 3L in one go at the finish of the ride! And they are not quite through it yet, the teams are now on a bus for 3.5 hours before they get a chance to get some real food - Stu mentioned they are down to a few meusli bars left over from their race food! He was hoping to sweet talk the bus driver into stopping at a service station, where it will be a race to the food shelves as over 100 hungry and thirsty racers will proably buy everything in sight!

ADCO NZ's Gordon Blythen (left) and Nathan Peterson (right) in the Rub Al Khali desert. Note the nifty white gaiters that Fleur made up for the team!

Teams will then set up camp for their final night in the shadow of Jabel Hafeet, the mountain in the desert. It will be a very early wake up as teams prepare for the 5:30am start in the dark for a short'night orienteering' section till dawn at 6:30am, then teams continue on foot up some canyon rope sections to the summit. There is then an 'untimed' mountain bike ride down the mountain (to prevent too much 'breakneck' speed) before the final bike and run stage around the city Al Ain to the finish line.

Read 0 Comments... >>

Almost at the end of the bike section, and it looks like ADCO have made a break on Vibram Sport2000 - ADCO are in the lead bunch with Richard usher's Qasr Al Sarab team and several others, Vibram are in the chasing bunch a few minutes back. With only a few km to go it will be an all out sprint for the finish line as teams fight to gain even a few seconds advantage!
Read 0 Comments... >>

After being out of contact for a the last couple of days in the desert ('Rub Al Khali' translates as 'the empty quarter' - the main inhabitants being camels, understandably a cellphone tower is probaly a low priority!), I have finally had another update from Stu.

The teams were resting part way through the bike section at the luxurious five star Qasr Al Sarab resort (the sponsor for the first placed Kiwi team!). Stu commented that the racing was hotting up "We are at the rest stop on the bike. We lost 1.5 minutes to Vibram Sport2000 on the first section of the ride, they got a break and we couldn't chase them down. We also got ANOTHER 5 minute penalty on the trek for losing a plug! The French seem stronger on the bike so far. It will be very very close!"

Stu's team seem to be doing their best to make the race exciting for us back home - they have accumulated THREE 5 minute penalties so far for minor infractions of the race rules:

• for losing an SI card (a small plastic electronic timing stick) on the prologue swim section. The SI cards are usually attatched to an athletes wrist with a plastic strap, I can only assume the strap wasn't tight enough and slipped off.

• for not having the sails up on the kayaks at the start of the kayak section. Not sure why this happened - the team has all raced in Abu Dhabi before, and I remember teams getting penalised for this in previous years! Perhaps there was some misunderstanding about the definition of what constituted the 'start' i.e the Adventure Triathlon kayak versus the Kayak proper section which started later that day.

• losing the 'plug' on the trek (not sure what the plug is - maybe off their GPS tracker or other mandatory gear?)

So on paper, ADCO NZ should be comfortably holding second place by some 20 mins or so, but they now find themselves leading by only 5 mins - definitely making for a tight finish! The French (including Kiwi Dwarne Farley) are very aware of the closing gap, captain Jacky Boisset commented "Our objective is to nibble at the time difference and make them work as hard as possible over the next couple of days was to - hopefully they will weaken, but with a headwind like this, it will be just as tough for us".  

The good news is that teams are now two thirds of the way through the final section of the bike ride, and ADCO and Vibram Sport2000 look to be riding very closely together. I imagine both teams will be giving it everything they have in an effort to gain an advantage over the other - a contrast to the desert trek, where it sounds like the top teams were somewhat more relaxed and happy to travel together!

 

Read 0 Comments... >>