Columbia Vidaraid Finish Second

Rob Howard / 04.03.2015

Team Columbia Vidaraid have finished in second place at Godzone Adventure 2015, crossing the line at midday on day 5 of the race.

The Spanish/Brazilian team, who are ranked No.1 in the AR World Series rankings, finished behind reigning Godzone and World Champions Seagate, and their second place is the highest any visiting team has ever achieved at Godzone. (The highest before that was Australian team Blackheart who placed 4^th in the first race.)

The team were all smiles at the finish, especially when the Race Directors greeted them with beer and pies, and while the men were in good shape Barbara Bomfim was hobbling a little due to injury and sore feet.

Speaking on the finish line Marco Anselem said, “It was such a hard race. There was so much rough country and you could easily slip and hurt yourself. Then last night the wind was strong on the paddle which is why we stopped for a bit. But that is good, it’s what we like – a real adventure.”

Jon Ander Arambalza added, “It was harder than any of the World Champs I think. They may be a day or two longer but the course here is  much harder.” Race Director Warren Bates told them, “Godzone is hard, but this was the hardest Godzone so far.”  He added, “You’ve beaten a lot of very good Kiwi teams.”

The team found the trekking hardest and felt they could perhaps have done a bit better, but then teams always feel that.  They had to stop at the orienteering stage to sleep for a while and I asked what happened there. “We left the control descriptions at the TA,” Anselem said, “so it was difficult in the dark and we were going round and round in such a small area and thought we must find it, but we couldn’t. It was tiredness. After we slept for 2 hours we found it in 10 minutes!”

Team Torpedo 7 were not too far behind them, and Columbia Vidaraid were just leaving when they arrived.  The unlucky team were putting a brave face on their mistake of missing a checkpoint and finishing unranked as a result.

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

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