Challenge Wanaka
Cheers for the Challengers at Wanaka
Rob Howard / 22.02.2015
Race day went true to form at the 9th Challenge Wanaka event yesterday. The weather was hot and showed off the world’s most scenic course at its jaw dropping best, and 2 times defending champion Dylan McNeice and 5 times champion Gina Crawford took the wins to continue their domination of the event.
Sunday dawned with clear skies and still waters as the pro racers gathered on the lake shore at Wanaka ready for the first of the starts of the various categories in the full and half ironman distances. The water temperature was 18 degrees and swim conditions were perfect as the elite field set off from the shore, and as expected Dylan McNeice quickly built up a lead. The defending champion is from a swimming background and holds the swim course record, and in the good conditions he broke it again, taking just 45 minutes 33 seconds for the 3.8km distance, taking a 2 minute 25 lead onto the bike stage over nearest challenger Michael Fox.
By the time he was on his bike the dawn light had reached down across the hills and onto the lake as the Half Challenge starters got underway on their races. There were some famous names competing on the ‘shorter’ distance, including course record holder Richard Ussher, now the Speights Coast to Coast Race Director, and last weekend’s winner of the C2C Jess Simson, racing in her home town event.
The course is set up so the full distance racers complete two laps each of the run and ride course, and the half distance do single laps. Each of the routes is hilly and the course may not just be the most scenic in the world, it could be the toughest over the classic distance too. The price to pay for the majestic mountain scenery all around is the constant up and down on road and trail.
This is especially so on the ride, which loops out to Lake Hawea and back to Wanaka via Luggate. Every meter has to be ridden, there are no easy flats, no place to hide and riders have to find the resolve to attack each hill, and to keep doing so. The man with the most resolve and the biggest heart on the day was Dougal Allen, the multisport athlete who has several 2nd place C2C finishes behind him, but had opted this year give Challenge Wanaka his best attempt and not race C2C.
Last year he had to battle to 3rd place after losing a lot of time on the swim, and this year the question was whether he could improve his swim to mount a challenge for the win. The answer was no and yes. His swim time was exactly the same at 1 hour 03 minutes, but astonishingly he made up the 18 minute deficit to McNeice! The pair raced into the final transition just seconds apart, an astonishing effort by Allen, and a shock to McNeice, who has lead all the way in his two previous wins.
It set up an exciting final run on the marathon course, which took the athletes out along the shore to Beacon Point, and then along the narrow and rooty Outlet Track beside the Clutha River, before turning back into town and the finish ... or the second lap for the full distance racers.
McNeice lead out the run strongly, opening up a 3 minute lead, and it was enough to hold off Allen, who had said to his rival in the change tent that he’d probably “burnt too many matches” in catching him. That might have been so but McNeice had to dig in on the second lap, saying he’d pushed it out too hard the first time around, and Allen was not dropping back any further, despite his herculean ride.
As you’d expect there was no quarter given but McNeice had enough in the tank to secure his third win in a row in a time of 08.37.14 with Allen finishing in 08.40.06.
Allen is another Wanaka resident and said, “I surprised myself on the bike but it took alot out of me and I was grateful for all the support out on the course. The whole town seems to have turned out and it really lifted me.” Asked about what the result meant for his racing career he replied; “I don’t know, it just leaves me confused. It would be hard to turn down running this race again and I made an effort to soak up the atmosphere and support in those last kilometres.”
In the Women’s full course race Gina Crawford was 7th coming off the swim, but took the lead quickly on the bike ride and lead all the way to the finish to secure her 6th win in 7 races with a comfortable 12 minute margin. More of a surprise was the second place of Laura Siddall, the UK athlete now based in San Francisco. A 4 time age group world champ she turned pro last year and was delighted with her second place in only her second ironman distance race.
“That was an amazing day.” she said. “I was really pleased with my swim and ride. The ride went so well and I just kept thinking I should enjoy it while it lasted. Then I ran hard and kept thinking the same thing! I was thinking I’d be caught on the run as I felt so tired at the end but actually I gained some time, so can’t have been running too badly.”
In the half distance races the men’s winner was an equally delighted Craig Savage in 04.22.48, ahead of Brett Tingay and Richard Ussher, who said his 3rd place run was “harder than any ironman I’ve done” as he’s not been in training while organising the Coast to Coast. The Ladies half distance winner was Hannah Wells in 04.57.33 finishing ahead of Jess Simson, who was backing up her C2C win last weekend.
There were many more age group and category winners throughout the day and into the night right up until the race closing party celebrated another successful Challenge Wanaka coming to a close.
For full results and all the information on the race see www.Challenge-wanaka.com
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