Team Helly Hansen in Costa Rica

Rob Howard / 28.01.2008

Team Helly Hansen have been quick to get involved in some international competition in 2008, with Nic McLeod and new team member Gideon Burke now racing in the wamer climes of Costa Rica at the Coastal Challenge. Maybe they just wanted to escape what’s been a very wet winter so far!

The race is already underway and began with a 21km stage featuring a tough climb up the Cerro Chato volanco. That was stage one of 6 daily stages covering 250km across Costa Rica’s demanding and incredibly varied coastal terrain, and stage 2 is going to be much tougher.

It was a good start for the UK pairing with Gideon finishing 10th, and Nic just behind him in 11th place, and leading the women’s race standings by an impressive 30 minutes from Connie Lutkevich of the USA. Both are racing the full ‘Expedition’ category and it seems they’ve managed to recruit a third racer to join them to enter the team category.

The teams seem to be made up by nationality (plus Team California), and scores are the cumulative total of the top 3 times, so the more in a team the better. Not surprisingly ‘Team Spain’, who have 6 racers, are in the lead after stage one. However, ‘Team UK’ are second, with Nic and Gideon joined by Luc English, who was 6th on day one. (Despite his name and team name he is listed as coming from Nicaragua/Australia, but I guess the nationality requirement is not a rule of team make up.)

SleepMonsters are providing the most detailed coverage of the race from our International Editor Jackie Windh, who is taking part in the race. She is some way behind the Helly Hansen runners, but her daily updates mean you can follow the race progress in detail. Stage maps and full daily results are also on the race website at www.thecoastalchallenge.com.