Southern Traverse
It\'s almost over for leading teams
20.11.2002
Leading teams in the Southern Traverse appear to have found things heavy going over some parts of the Richmond Range mountain trek overnight.
It took race leaders Seagate.com nine hours to get from check point 26 to check point 27. The distance they covered, if walked on flat terrain, would take your everyday Joe Bloggs an hour or two. This indicates the extreme conditions the competitors must have been faced with.
Media manager Margo Berryman is out on the course. She says the low cloud conditions overnight meant the competitors would did not have a clear run with the full moon.
“But with the heavy scrub and bush they had to navigate through it wouldn’t have made much difference.�
Currently there are seven teams battling these rough conditions endeavouring to get to check point seven and catch Seagate.com. Sportzhub.com is leading this group and are about 45 minutes behind Seagate.com, but are 3 hours ahead of Lythgoe, Kathmandu, Southern Flyers, Sierra International, Star and Garter/High Country and Team Delta Roadex, who are also in hot pursuit.
Teams are still spread throughout the field with Team Singapore Power about to reach transition area 5 bringing up the rear.
Four teams are now racing unranked due to travelling too slow and missing the cut off points, or missing a check point. These teams include MotherLode Gold Seekers (US), Endorphine Junkies (Singapore) and SPOR (MIX).
It’s now day four and by tonight some of the teams will be enjoying the comforts of home. The leading teams will be fighting for first all day. They are expected in Blenheim later this afternoon, or early evening. Watch this space.
SleepMonsters
