Maya Mountain Challenge
USA Bones Secures Ticket to Reunion Island With Win in Belize
Press Release / 02.03.2018
Team USA Bones (Team Bones Adventure Racing) were the victors at the first AR World Series Qualfiier of 2018 in Belize and have secured themselves a coveted spot to the AR World Championship 2018 on Reunion Island in November. Team members included Roy Malone, Jen Segger, Aaron Rinn and Chad Spence.
Team Captain Roy Malone looked relieved as he crossed the finish line after leading his team through the jungles and caves of Belize for almost 4 days. This is the second win USA Bones has had at an AR World Series Qualifier, the previous being their home territory on the West Coast of the USA in 2013.
Only the first and second placed teams completed the full course and visited all checkpoints of the race. Aaron Rinn from Bones said “It was a lot harder and longer than I anticipated”. Roy said “We thought leg 5 and 6 would be the crux of the race. But then Leg 7 looked short on the map, we planned for 3 hours and ended up being in the jungle for 9 hours.”
Second place was team France Naturex (400 TEAM) including Romy Viale, Nicolas Seguin, Sebastien Raichon and Sonis Furtado. Naturex looked to be solid prospects for winning, despite some small errors on day 3, until they encountered major problems near CP23 on the third night. They gave up a 4 hour lead to Bones and then fell another 8 agonising hours behind them. The team said on social media “This was the beginning of hell… we tried everything, found lots of tracks. Finally we had to use our arms like machete to get out. In spite of everything we crossed the line tonight after 100 hours of intense racing in a beautiful country and showed everyone the mental strength we have as a team.”
USA Bones was able to capitalise on the error of French to lead the remainder of the race to the finish line. Jen Segger said, “It is a long race and you have just got to keep pushing, because you don’t know what is going on ahead of you. You just don’t give up.”
Roy Malone said “In these races something is always going to happen, and if you are in a position to pounce, you are going to set yourself up to be in good shape.”
Team France Agde Raid Adventure shared long sections of the difficult jungle trek near CP23 with Naturex and finished the race in 3rd place overall. The team included Paul Galode, Antony Diaz, Jerome Gleyze and Christine Cornez. Paul complemented the winners saying on social media “Bones was magical in their orienteering through the jungle as it was particularly difficult in many sections”.
Final results for the Maya Mountain Adventure Challenge were:
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