Land Rover G4 Challenge UK Selections
Home Straight
Pyro / 29.11.2008
Ziplining off the top of Eastnor Castle was just the first part, jumaring part of the way back up the next. Kayak orienteering around the lake, both navigation and speed playing their part, while all the while others zipped over their heads on the way to the floor.
The competitors also got a chance to relive their childhoods with a low-ropes course - running across log bridges, rope swings and cable runs, all timed of course, and all going towards their final tallies. Unfortunately for them, they also had to re-visit the torture chamber of the Day 1 Physical section, reprising their earlier performances and being challenged to better their scores.
Nick Gracie had set the Day 1 record for the Tyre Lift, with 60 reps in the three minute time period, but he was under pressure. 2 competitors stepped up it up to 61 each, before Julian Jordan worked out an almost perfect technique to take the bar to 69.
On the \'hamster wheel\', the muddy ground conditions meant that the wood of the drum had become very slippery and competitors were warned to clean their shoes off well before starting. All the same, a few slips meant few bettered their performance in an activity colourfully described as \"imagine three minutes of jogging in treacle\".
The triangle-spinning challenge, the bane of many of the smaller competitors, was fortuitously out of action, the main part of the structure having snapped at the hands of Devon farmer/butcher Ed Greig.
As they entered the last head-to-head activity, the atmosphere started to get tenser. Duelling on a climbing wall cube, trying to pull G4 Challenge Buffs off each others heads provided a brief non-scored diversion, but that didn’t make the competition any less fierce.
After a series of eliminator-style round, first four-up, then two-man, and finally coming down to 2 men, with the prize of a Mountain Hardwear jacket an extra incentive.
The final - Adam Juniper vs Bruce Duncan - was a nailbiting race, a full lap of the cube, both men well over 6’ tall giving them the reach to move very quickly across the holds. Bruce took the prize by a whisker, but the camaraderie of all the candidates had really shone through and their minds were, at least momentarily, diverted from the impending announcement of the final results.
SleepMonsters
