Favourites and Media Stars

Rob / 10.10.2002

So, which teams are expected to do well. It has to be a round up of ‘the usual suspects’ – experience counts for so much it’s hard to see new teams breaking into the established order and causing any major surprises.

The team out front to be chased are Golite/Balance Bar lead by the awesome Ian Adamson, who has done and won just about everything in the biggest AR Races. Three of this team were winners in New Zealand last year, coming from behind at the very last to beat the local team who’d lead almost all the way. It was a devastating tactical victory, especially as the Kiwi’s were on home territory. They’ll be hard to beat but of the other American teams it’s mostly likely to be Earthlink and Montrail Parallaxwho are competing with them.

Last year’s result leaves Seagate.com NZ, lead by Nathan Fa’avae, with something to prove. Surprisingly they are the only NZ team (or maybe not after last year’s date/venue clash with Southern Traverse), so they carry all the Kiwi hopes. The jungle may not suit them as well as last year’s cooler, high mountain course though.

Air Pacific are always going to be strong contenders. The Australians are led by John Jacoby and his race biography (see the Eco-Challenge site) is amazing. Asked who the best all round racer in the world was recently Pete James said it was Jacoby. All his team are equally strong, particularly when paddling, which is where they’ll hope to pull out a lead.

The challenge from Europe includes some strong teams but realistically the US and Australasian teams are expected to have the edge. Nokia Adventure are still the World Champions after their victory in Switzerland in 2001, but since then they’ve not been so successful. The French team Spie lead by Beatrice Piolat (the Terminators) will worry the Americans as they’ve chased them very, very hard before and the Spaniards of Buff AXN are strong too, though their record shows lots of 3rd, 4th and 5th places – they’ve never quite broken through at the top yet.

We’re biased of course, butThe North Face Kona and maybe even Bridgedale Ireland Salomon have the capability to get in amongst the leaders. At the least they’ll hope to compete to be the first European team across the finish line and may have a close race against each other.

That’s unlikely to get them any TV airtime though as the cameras from US networks want outright winners and preferably with American accents! The brave local Fijian team will justifiably get a lot of attention, especially early on (just in case!), but the sure fire interviewees will be Smirnoff Ice Playboy X-treme, a team of three former Playboy Bunnies accompanied by legendary racer Roman Dial -who obviously has a hellish job. Kodak Watersport will get some attention too as they’ve got Star War’s actor Hayden Christiansen on the team (and two of his relatives too by the looks of it) while the other guaranteed media stars are Mad River, all former ‘competitors’ from the reality TV shows ‘Survivor’ and ‘Road Rules’. They should feel right at home at Eco-Challenge.

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