Mountain Designs GeoQuest
Seagate Win Geoquest in Australia
Sharon Payne / 09.06.2014
Seagate from New Zealand, proved they are a force to be reckoned with by winning the Mountain Designs GeoQuest at Crescent Head on the New South Wales coast today. The four man team regained the lead in the early hours of Sunday morning during the 70 km mountain bike leg finishing the 247km course in 25hr 24min. Their win was more impressive after backing up from winning the longer 500km World Series adventure race in South Africa last week.
Team captain, Nathan Fa’avae, said the team had recovered well from the expedition length race except for Stu Lynch who struggled with a stomach upset throughout most of the GeoQuest race. “Stu came right for a while. In the section between the bike legs,” said fellow team member Jacob Roberts. However Lynch was relieved to rest at the finish line after racing continuously for two days.
The team of four found the intensity and conditions a little tough going. “The first few hours were the worst,” said Sophie Hart from Seagate. “It was hot and it really affected us.”
The race saw four main teams close for most of the first 24 hours with the lead changing a record five times during the 48 hours. It was Australian team, Outer Limits Adventure that secured second place just 52 minutes behind Seagate.
Townsville’s Sam Stedman from Outer Limits said that they raced steadily and made some good decisions which secured them their highest GeoQuest placing.
The defending champions, Peak Adventure Shotz from Victoria, trekked in for third place after having bike trouble early in the race along with locating one checkpoint during the night. They finished in 28hr 45 minutes. Early race leaders, Mountain Designs from Queensland were overtaken by Peak Adventure in the final few kilometres just missing the podium spot by four minutes to finish a respectable fourth overall.
Three Canberra teams took out the podium places in the half GeoQuest won by team IB Bandits in 15hr 35min. Second were team GuRu just 9 minutes down while team Odd Sizes claimed third in a time of 20hr 30min.
North Queensland has just been announced as host of the 2015 World Series race and teams will now begin to plan their preparation towards race the longer 700km course which takes 10 days.
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