Australian Angst

Rob Howard / 15.11.2014

The ups and downs of team emotions at the finish continue. After talking to a quietly satisfied team Switzerland this morning the next team to finish were short-coursed Team Australia, and their smiles on the finish line were a little forced. They were not too happy to have been short coursed, not happy at all.

When I spoke to Thorlene Egerton at the finish she said her impressions of Ecuador were that it was muddy!  Asked if she had anything positive to say about the country she remained silent ...

There were only 3 finishing on this team, as after being pulled out at the first cut off Keith Conley had suffered severe gastro problems and decided not to go on with the tough Amazon trek. That meant the team had a tricky time on the final paddle as they were 3 in two kayaks, so they rigged up a tow, which they said worked well and the team had two strong and fast stages to finish.

“We’d been sitting around for 2 days,” said Dane Roberts, “so we had a point to prove and set a fast time on the jungle trek.” He added, “The scenery has been amazing and as Australians we are quite used to tropical conditions and not as afraid of snakes as most of the teams here. We were going well at the start, but the storm on the stage 3 trek slowed us down a lot, that was tough being in the jungle in that rain, and a little dangerous with the big drop offs.”

But almost every interview question was soon turned back to the issue of the cut-off. “The hardest bit was mentally adjusting to the cut-off,” said Thorlene Egerton, “and then to cope with sitting around for 2 days before we restarted.”

Ingrid Stengard was even more direct. “The cut-off was way too early and for no good reason!” she said.

Roberts was also upset about not knowing the cut-off had been moved. “We were taking it easy thinking we’d missed it,” he said. “If we had known we could have made it and some others did know as they met race cars who told them. If the race had sent a message on the Yellowbrick we’d have known too, but they didn’t.”

Egerton summed up the frustration. “We sat around for 2 days doing nothing, now we’ve finished and the course is open for another 2 days. If you gave me the option I’d go back out now to do all the stages we missed, like a shot.”

Despite their frustrations the team were the 3^rd Short Course team to cross the line, and the first team to finish with 2 women and 2 men on the team.  (There are two other teams with this make up, both still out on the full course at this moment.)

You can follow the race live at http://live.huairasinchi.com/

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