Expedition Africa 2014
Top Teams Assemble at Expedition Africa
Rob Howard / 22.05.2014
Expedition Africa is the first race this year to assemble several top ranked World Series teams on its start line. It’s a chance to see how they shape up against each other this year; who is missing, who is back, and what’s changed in their line-ups.
SleepMonsters has been chatting to the 3 top ranked teams ahead of the race; Seagate (2nd), Tecnu (4th) and Haglofs Silva (6th).
Haglofs Silva are the defending champions at Expedition Africa and Björn Rydvall said; “For us plans for the season 2014 looks pretty much the same as last years.
We will race some ARWS-races (as of today only Expedition Africa, since Endurance Quest was cancelled) and the ARWC in Ecuador. Besides that we’ll be at the Wulong Quest race in China and a few mountain marathons and shorter multisport races in Sweden.
The team is the same as since year 2009; Björn Rydvall, Mattias Nyström, Robert Lindberg, Aaron Prince and Josefina Wikberg. Sometimes, due to families and work, we need to get a substitute for one or more team members.
Emil Dahlqvist, who replaced me while I was unable to race autumn 2013 (due to a shoulder surgery) will join the team for Expedition Africa, so the team for this race will be Josefina, Björn, Mattias and Emil.”
Their experience in Africa and Rydvall’s navigation will make the top Swedish team hard champions to dislodge, though they will be coming out of winter training in Sweden.
Seagate have no such concerns and arrive of the back of an impressive win at Godzone Adventure, also with a new team member, but this time on a more permanent basis.
“Godzone went well for our team,” said Nathan Fa’avae. “NZ is the easiest place in the world for us to race obviously so it means we can perform without any other distractions or things to overcome.
Without the added pressure of teams around us we were able to focus on ourselves and our needs, which I think contributed to our large lead by the end.
It was also helpful to have a smooth race to bring Stuart Lynch into the team. Trevor Voyce (2012 & 2103 team mate) opted to step down from racing for a stint. He has another child due this year and a successful business that demands his time. He is concentrating on multi-sport and stage racing.
We have heard many great things about Expedition Africa. It's always fun to race in an exotic location and SA has a rich history in the sport along with many top athletes, Team Mazda back in Eco Challenge Fiji 2002 was an exceptional team.
I'm looking forward to a harder race than we had at Godzone in terms of competition with Silva, Tecnu and maybe some other top internationals plus the top host nation teams. It will be good for us to have a higher pressure race and test.”
The timing was good for Seagate to bring in Lynch, who has recently moved back to New Zealand, and adding a double (and current) World Champion to their team won’t make the task any easier for those who are so often chasing them.
Tecnu finished 2nd in Expedition Africa last year and come with a re-shaped team and an Aussie navigator.
Team manager Doug Judson fills in the detail. “Bob Miller is getting married this year, and after racing 13 years in a row was in need of a well deserved timeout, especially after getting on the podium at Worlds. He thought it was the opportune time to take a time out.
With Karen Lundgren moving on we felt Mari Chandler was a great addition to our team as we have raced with her dozens of times, and she is one of the toughest gals out there. She has tons of experience, and really fits our teams strengths and weaknesses, and she knows how to suffer with the best of them.
She comes from Team Bones (who finished 9th in Costa Rica with a lot left in the tank) but she raced with us most of 2010/2011 with a lot of success, so she fits in well with our goals and what we are looking to accomplish. She is definitely one of the "Tecnu guys.
Rob Preston hails from Australia and is no stranger to the AR world as one of the top racers, having been in the top 5 at Worlds several times. He took a year hiatus from expedition racing, but has joined us this year as our team’s primary navigator, and he is World Class so we don't expect to see a falloff at all in that area. He compliments our team’s strengths very well, and is very well rounded, and just finished a 9:40 Ironman 2 at his first attempt. So we have great expectations for this team to be able to improve on their performance at Worlds, and give the top rung a real shot.
Expedition Africa looks like it will be a mini Worlds with Seagate, Merrell and others showing up, so it will be a good test for us to see where we are at this early stage in the season. After our 2nd place there last year in a hard fought race we have high expectations, and the team is fit, motivated, and has trained very hard.”
So, there you have the top 3 ranked international visitors to the race, but they will undoubtedly face a tough challenge from the home nation teams, and we’ll take a look at the top challengers there next.
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