ARWC 2015 Brazil - Pantanal
Seagate Win the 2015 AR World Championship
Rob Howard / 21.11.2015
Team Seagate of New Zealand crossed the finish line at the 2015 AR World Championships in Brazil just after 7am local time this morning. The team, who have dominated the race and completed more of the course than any other team, were also the first to reach the finish line, on day 7 of the non-stop race.
The final stage of this epic race as a short paddle on River Paraguay, back to Corumba, where the teams set out from a week ago. For this paddle the teams were give a local wooden canoe to paddle, and the finish line was set up in the water. The victorious team paddled across the line, stood, jumped in, hugged and enjoyed their moment.
Sophie Hart said, “We didn’t see anyone for days and have no idea what is going on in the rest of the race. It wasn’t until we started riding that we saw any other teams at all, it was like we were on our own private tour of Pantanal!” (The other teams could only catch them with the help of a plane!)
Chris Forne said he’d recovered well after being stung by a sting ray. “It was just on the arch of my foot,” he said, “and I whimpered quietly to myself for a few hours, then it swelled up a lot, but then it was gone all of a sudden.” He had clearly relished the navigation in the big pack raft stage, even though the team were not making a lot of progress at times.
“We were in the rafts a lot,” said Stuart Lynch, “but sometimes in the weeds you couldn’t paddle and we towed them, then we got stuck. It was like you imagine adventure racing to be before you take part!” For Lynch it was his second ARWC win in Brazil, having won previously in 2008 with Team Orion Health.
Nathan Fa’avae, who had an inflamed eye (which he said ‘looked a lot worse than it feels’), said, “The main emotion right now is relief, to get the job done as so much can always go wrong, even down to the final stages.”
He added, “We really felt like we had to look after ourselves and each other. It was so isolated and we probably went to places no one had been to before – why would anyone go there!”
Now Seagate have been there and taken a commanding win in Fa’avae’s last AR World Championship race – a fitting way to cap an incredible racing career with this most successful adventure racing team of the decade.
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