Southern Traverse
Everyone is finished .... and wants to do it again!
Victoria Warman/Southern Traverse / 14.11.2003
"This sets a new level for the event," said even director Geoff Hunt. "We have received fantastic feedback from all the teams who were determined, if possible, to complete the race."
Nine teams completed the tough main course which covered 411km of rugged Otago terrain. Six finished the shorter adventure course and six came home in the experience race.
The adventure course still took athletes into the Lammermoors, which was a daunting 70km trek, but on a lesser route. The experience course dropped this section altogether.
Four teams raced unranked after illness affected some team members.
"Teams that did have to pull out altogether were mainly forced to by sickness rather than anything else," said Hunt.
Unranked Team Omnigraphics was the first classic course team home at 08.44am on Friday (November 14) but had no official status.
The overall winner, Team Icebreaker Bridgedale from Dunedin, Alexandra and Queenstown finished in 98 hours 59 minutes, starting in the Dunedin Octagon at 8.30am on Monday (November 10) arriving at the St Clair Beach finish line at 11.29am on Friday (November 14). The final team across the line in the main event, Team Capriccio-Swazi, was clocked at 8.59am today (Saturday).
A popular team with the crowd was the Dunedin based Team SBS led by veteran Traverse athlete Ron Anderson. The team said it was a thrill to complete the Otago based race in front of a home crowd, arriving at St Clair at 19.51pm on Friday (November 14), after sitting out a four hour penalty incurred earlier in the race.
Hunt said the weather during the race was a real mixed bag with rain, hail, snow, wind and sunshine experienced throughout the week. During the Lammermoors section there were cold southerlies, with snow, but as one competitor put it – "the storms were well orchestrated and we could handle them."
"While we had a lot of squally weather it was always short lived and it was probably the best weather scenario we have had for some time on a Southern Traverse," said Hunt.
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