Telecom Local Directories Motu Challenge
Motu Kicks Of NZ Multisport Series
Michael Jaques / 13.10.2005
The North Island’s premier multisport race kicks off the annual Sportzhub.com New Zealand Multisport series this weekend. For nine years the Telecom Local Directories Motu Challenge has been the North Island’s premier multisport race. Designed by Bay of Plenty endurance sport legend Neil Jones, this scenic but savage course takes competitors on a 171km of mountain biking, running, road cycling and kayaking through the historic Motu region.
The Motu Challenge also heralds the start of the 2004/05 Sportzhub.com national series. With series points at stake and a prize purse of $27,500 (the richest in the sport) almost 600 multisporters are heading for Saturday’s Opotiki start line.
All eyes this year will be on the return of Neil Gellatly. After two quiet years establishing a personal training business Gellatly is on the comeback trail. But the Christchurch-based former Speights Coast to Coast runner-up will have to firing on all cylinders to repel a retribution-inspired Gordon Walker.
Walker returns to the Motu looking to put the record straight. On an extremely windy day in 2004 the Aucklander was blown off his bike just minutes after taking the lead in the race. He recovered to finish second, but even eventual race winner George Christison admitted that the win should have been Walker’s.
Walker is the defending champion in the Sportzhub.com national series, while Gellatly is a former winner of the series. But almost unnoticed in third place, both in the 2004 Motu Challenge and last season’s national series, has been Mt Maunganui’s Dwarne Farley. Farley made big improvements last season, winning two rounds of the national series, Auckland’s Thermatech Head to Head and Wellington’s Kathmandu Crazyman. If he continues the same rate of improvement he has the potential to upset the established favourites.
Others with potential to upset the status quo are veteran Nathan Livingston and newcomer Amanda Peake. Livingston finished second in last season’s Sportzhub.com national series and as the only main player on the national vets scene lining up at Motu, he gets a good head start on going to the top step of the national series podium.See All Event Posts
