Mix and Match at Tierra Viva
Rob Howard / 15.04.2016
The third race of the 2016 AR World Series is about to start in Chile with the latest edition of Tierra Viva, ‘The Beast of Patagonia’.
There so is no real information about the course yet, but we do know the line up of the 13 international teams entered, though you may not recognise many, or possibly any, of them. That does not mean there are no strong teams, just not the team names or line-ups you might expect.
The only team racing from within the top 20 World Rankings are Ecuador Moviestar, who did so well at their home World Champs at couple of years ago and are once again joined by Jari Hiatt, returning to Patagonia after her recent win with Godzone Adventure at the Patagonian Expedition Race.
Her team mate from that event, Nick Gracie, is at Tierra Viva too, which is no surprise as he rarely misses a chance to race in South America. Other elite racers on the team list are Urtzi Iglesias and Barbara Bomfim (regulars on Columbia Vidaraid) and Rain Eensaar from the Estonian ACE adventure team, but they are all racing with different team mates this time out.
Bomfim and Eensaar are on Team Trail Del Viento with experienced racer Daniel Pincu and Flavio Guercio, both from Argentina, and they could be one of the strongest teams in the line-up. Another strong looking team are Walhalla lead by Gustavo Borgognon from Paraguay and including Gracie, Iglesias and Joanne Thom from the UK. (She was on the winning European Champs team in Ireland with Gracie last year.)
There is strong French entry for this event, with two teams racing (Endorphinmag and DSN 74) and theirs are the only flags on the leaderboard not from South America – with the notable exception of the team called ‘The Impossible Dream’, who come from South Korea. I don’t know anything about them at all, but it’s great to see more Asian teams taking part in Adventure Racing and hopefully they will find it little easier than the S. Korean team at the recent Godzone race. (They clearly had a baptism of fire, but it’s one thing to struggle in New Zealand where there are lots of resources to hand if help is needed, and quite another in Patagonia.)
Of the remaining South American teams Ultra Sports Natural Uruguay are strong performers, there are several Argentinean teams who are very experienced at Tierra Viva, and there is also a Chile AR team in the mix, joined by Pekka Sorjonen from Finland. It will be fascinating to see who comes out on top in the mountains and forests of Patagonia.
The live page for the race is http://tierravivarace.com/ranking/
