Southern Traverse
tug-of-war
Claire Hathaway / 18.11.2002
With stage five being a cycling leg and Seagate.com being so strong in the discipline a big gap from first to second could soon be established.
Seagate.com and Sportzhub have been vying for the lead all day with Sportzhub.com taking the lead from Seagate.com at transition three in Duncan Bay earlier this morning.
Seagate.com rode into the transition area at 9.46am looking tired but well, Sportzhub.com followed them in an hour later looking much fresher.
Late entry to the Sportzhub.com Jill Westenra was looking good and said things were “going fine�. She even had a joke with race director Geoff Hunt asking, “can i go home yet?� Her team only spent 20 minutes in transition. They decided not to sleep and bet Seagate to the water taking the lead.
Seagate.com spent about an hour and a half in the transition area eating stew and potatoes and managing to get half and hour sleep. Team captain Nathan Faa’vae said: “We’ve gone through some bad patches, but have been going non-stop without sleep.
“The ride was a mixture of riding from technical, to riding on gravel and then seal at times, there were some good downhills.�
There is an estimated 24hr spread throughout the field. Tom Wood Flyers from the USA have not reached transition area two yet, the leading teams made it to this point around 7pm last night.
Lythgoe (UK), Kathmandu and Southern Flyers have broken away from the first pack, but are still paddling and need to make it to transition four before 9pm if they want to catch Seagate.com and Sportzhub.com.
There are five other teams on the water who will be also aiming to beat the dark zone curfew when they have to be off the water between 9pm and 6am. The curfew could give a chance for the competitors in the middle and back of the field to make some headway and close the gap overnight.
Weather conditions seem to be posing no threats to the race tonight.
SleepMonsters
