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Cold Conditions at the Suunto Action Asia Challenge

Michael Maddess (Action Asia) / 15.12.2011

The weather could not have been more punishing this year. Brutally cold conditions prevailed and winds were howling at the Tai Mo Shan start area for the Suunto Action Asia Challenge. Participants were in a daze at the start wondering if they would be warm enough to even survive what was coming up.

Overall winners in 4 hours 2 minutes 40 seconds were ‘Chiru Endurance Asia’ and team member Jeremy Ritcey said; “The theme of the day was the ridiculous cold. Fingers went numb at the start. The run was good with Cosmo setting the pace on the technical run. Both Champion System teams overtook us at halfway, but we didn’t mind as we would rather be chasing then being chased early on. Were down a minute which was O.K. as we ended up catching the leaders in the river gully and stayed together through that section until just before the next CP. We grabbed the lead again and then Cosmo had a head-on collision with some biker bythe reservoir landing hard.�

His team mate Cosmo Richards talked about the crash and finish. “It was a beauty - you should have seen it. We were all pushing as it was so close among the top 3. We started the kayak with what we thought was a 5 minute lead only to find out Ryan & Jay were not far behind at the last kayak checkpoint as they took a shortcut through the headland. We had to risk it at the end going for the headland not knowing what to expect cutting through the Pearl Island tunnel. We didn’t know we’d won until the beach with 100m to go. Our arms were trashed and we were both suffering. It was really close right till the last minute.�

Just 1 minute 21 seconds later the Champion Systems team crossed the line.

“We went for a 5 a.m. run 1 hour before the start trying to warm-up and hit a tree route in the dark and blew my ligament. I was thinking, this is going to change my strategy. I taped up the ankle and took some painkillers as I knew I’d be racing in pain�, said Ryan Blair from Champion Systems Adventure.

“We knew we had to be careful in the gorge so the strategy was to go hard, get the lead and hopefully stay there until the gorge. We fell down so many times as knew we had the lead and pushed even harder. We had 2 minutes on the Stone/Klaytens Champion System team and I knew if I rolled it again the race was over, but I had to manage it and focus on not twisting it the ankle.

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