adidas TERREX Prunesco Win Round 3 at Tierra Viva, Argentina
ARWS News Release / 02.04.2013
Round three of the 2013 Adventure Racing World Series has now been completed with teams taking part in the Tierra Viva Adventure Race in Argentinean Patagonia where British team adidas TERREX Prunesco took the win.
Races earlier this year were held on New Zealand's South Island, and in the highlands and jungles of Ecuador, and the setting and scenery for race 3 were just as spectacular. Twenty teams with athletes from 11 nations began the 580km race with a 36km paddle on Lake Traful near Bariloche, in a region characterised by deep blue lakes, dense forest and volcanic mountains.
Tierra Viva offered teams a chance to explore this amazing area with a format unique in the AR World Series, using a fixed camp they could access at the end of each stage of the race. They were given their maps at the start of each section, and on the trekking stages chose which order in which to visit the checkpoints. (They were all given a camera and had to take a photo of the whole team at each one!) This rewarded teams with good navigation and route planning skills, always a vital part of team expedition racing, and meant some teams were in the wilderness on their own for much of the race. At one point the leading two teams met each other going in opposite directions!
From the early stages of the race the two highest ranked teams in the World Rankings took control. These were adidas Terrex Prunesco, and Columbia Vidaraid of Spain, who were joined for this event by experienced racers Daniel Pincu (Argentina) and Barbara Bonfim (Brazil). Though Columbia Vidaraid are the higher ranked (5th compared to adidas Terrex at 7th), it was the British team who took the lead after the first paddle, and stayed there through to the finish.
Given their track record in Patagonia this wasn't a surprise, it was only recently this team completed a 5 run winning streak at the Patagonian Expedition Race across the border in Chile. They are also familiar with the open route choice treks as many races in the UK use this format. Two of the team (Tom Gibbs and Nick Gracie) were winners of the 2009 World Championship in Portugal, and they were joined in Argentina by adidas TERREX regular Chris Hope, and for the first time by U.S. racer Jari Kirkland.
In hot weather, with clear skies day and night, all the teams experienced Patagonia at its majestic best. Gracie commented, "The weather was amazing, clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine every day. It made for some hot dry racing so the course was fast, but also meant we were always on the lookout for water. Every night we had a full moon and clear skies and there were a few awesome ridge runs with no head torches."
He added, "It was a brilliant racecourse and none of the sections were too long so it was great to keep switching disciplines. There were a lot of route choice options, which made it interesting, and we also saw some amazing wildlife, condors, rutting stags, giant kingfishers, humming birds, a snake and a giant hairy tarantula spider as well as 2 wild boars that did their best to take us out one night on our bikes!"
The British team finished the course in 93 hours (with only 4 hours of sleep) and won a free place in the World Championships in Costa Rica in December. Columbia Vidaraid were second in 98 hours 5 minutes and will be guaranteed a qualifying place in Costa Rica, and Todo Aventura (a combined Chilean and Argentinean team) were third in 110 hours 09 minutes.
The next race in the AR World Series is Expedition Africa in May and the AR World Series Rankings will be updated at the end of May.
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