Tierra Viva
Seagate Win Tierra Viva in Argentina Convincingly
Wladimir Togumi / 01.03.2012
Seagate were the winners of the 2012 Tierra Viva race, with an advantage which reached almost 24 hours over second place team, X-Bionic Extreme of France.
The race was held in San Martin de los Andes, a town at the foot of the Andes and surrounded by lakes and mountains. It´s located about 200 km from Bariloche.
The format of Tierra Viva is a little different from other expedition races. After every section teams return to a central camp, where they had set up a tent with all their equipment, clothing and the food needed for the entire race.
Another difference is the course is revelead in the middle of race. Each time the team finished a section and returned to the central camp, they got new maps, coordinates and instructions for the next section.
Saturday and Sunday were reserved for teams to set up their tents at the central camp, established around 8 km from the city center. On Sunday night the race briefing took place, with an explanation of race format and the first section; 50km of kayaking on Lake Lologo.
Another distinguishing feature of this race is that most checkpoints are virtual, with orienteering control punches or teams taking pictures of themselves on arrival (the latter is used mainly in the mountains).
From the beginning Seagate showed for what they came for and began to open their distance from the rest of the field. At the first checkpoint the difference was 12 minutes and by the end of the section they had a 40 minute lead, completing the section in 7 hours. The slowest team took 10 hours to return to Villa Lolog.
Strong headwind hampered the teams on the outward leg, but when they came back (it was back and forth down the end of the lake) they could use sails to help.
After this teams received the maps of the following section, the most difficult of all, with mountain biking (130 km) and trekking in the mountains (70 km). And the strategic options were already beginning: there were two sections of trekking. The short one took an average of 5 hours for the first teams and in the long one, Seagate took about 14 hours.
Teams could choose what sub-section to do first – the short or the long - and within each of them had Virtual CP’s that should be photographed with team members. There was no mandatory order, so each team could decide their own strategy and route. On returning to the bikes, the supervisor of CP checked the photos and released the team to move forward.
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