AR World Championship 2005
Kiwis Fill The Top Three
Susan McKenzie / 14.11.2005
A phrase often repeated this morning at TA4, where teams would finally finish the first epic trek of this race, a trek that would take some of the top teams almost twenty-four hours to complete.
Balance Vector arrived at about eight-thirty. They rafted the 9-kilometre white water section down the Buller River, got showered down and “Didymo’d� and had already had a snooze before the second place team even made its appearance at the rafting put-in.
Finally, shortly after noon, “they should be coming soon� was replaced by “here they come.� The question was: who were “they?� A cluster of teams, including Nike Balance bar, Powered by Velvet.org.nz, GoLite Timberland, Halti, and Merrell Wigwam Adventure left CP7 together early this morning, and no one was quite sure which team made it out of the bush first.
As the team walked down the gravel road, a familiar face at the Southern Traverse popped into view and answered that question. Richard Anderson stopped to dip his water bottle in a dirty muddy puddle before catching up with the rest of the members of Powered by Velvet.org.nz. Not the best water to drink, but he didn’t bother to purify it before he used it to swallow a few of those velvet pills.
“I’ve been waiting for this for five hours,� Koleighne Ford said as she grabbed a sandwich buried in the gear left for the team at the TA.
It would be an understatement to say that this Kiwi team made incredible advances overnight during the trek.
“Not bad, eh, considering we were 28th off the bikes,� Anderson said. “We worked really hard early on then by the end we were down to a mundane pace. I also left all of my food back at the TA, so I had to keep getting nuts and things from my teammates.�
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