Wenzhou Adventure Challenge in China

Richard Ussher / 23.04.2013

Elina and I headed across to China along with a good contingent of Kiwi racers for a new race in China. Wenzhou is on the coast of China and a reasonably large city at 7.5 million, flying in it was obvious there was a fair amount of water around and also a lot of city!

It is fair to say it was an efficient trip – 8 days, 3 travelling, 4 racing and only 1 of down time. This race had a new format with teams of 2 including a male division and a mixed division.

Day 1

The shortest of the days, and a very urban setting but only minutes from the hotel, which was great. We started with a super fast 5km run along the road, teams racing to get into the first TA.

From there we were into the kayaks for a quick trip across to a theme park island in the middle of a huge river (in fact the same island we were staying on during the race) for a short orienteering section.  The French team Thule - Jackie and Mimi had got a bit of a gap on us during the 1^st run and luckily for us had taken a wrong turn in the orienteering allowing us to catch right up.

We started the main kayaking section together and there were a few different tactics from the various teams around us as to the fastest line into the flowing tide. The river had been causing a bit of consternation as it flowed quite strongly in both directions – depending on the time of day as even 30km inland it was subject to a massive tidal variation.

We finally managed to get a small gap when Thule surfed off our wash and out to the side although it only amounted in about 25 seconds over the next 10km.  To our disappointment the kayaks were very much one pace and if someone was on your wash getting rid of them was almost impossible.

We hit the bike section and got through transition with the smallest of margins and into a strong headwind and we slowly extended our gap. Heading into the final 10km we passed over a large bridge and could see Thule had been caught by one two of the Men’s team and were being dragged across the gap to us.

It was a big surprise when we were caught a while later and they weren’t part of the group. We weren’t about to let the free ride to the end go and tucked in behind gaining valuable time on the others.

The final stage was a run up a 25-story building before an abseil off the top to the finish line. We got to the finish with a 45 second advantage to 2^nd and only another 30 seconds back to R&R Sport from NZ in 3^rd. 

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