Cat and mouse game continues at front of GODZONE race

It’s been a game of two halves on today’s third day of One NZ GODZONE as the race moves into the second quarter of the extensive 613km course through the Marlborough region.

Sophie Hart, Chris Forne, Sam Clark and Simone Maier of Team Rab have taken the lead in the Pure section during the last hour as Molly Spark from Team Fear Youth suffered a flat tyre on the 133km Stage 4 mountain bike over the 1566m Acheron Saddle.

“The bike ride was terrible but fun,” said Molly. “It was quite big, going up 800 meters and then dropping down. We would ride two metres, then get off our bikes, and this was repeated about 300 times across rivers and ruts. I have never had a flat tyre before but got one today right behind Team Rab - the boys fixed it fast, and we got going again.”

The lead teams have pushed hard all day to make it through to the canyoning section at St Ronan’s Well in the Wairau Valley, which is expected to take teams around two hours to complete, in the hope of getting onto the Wairau River before the dark zone kicks in at 8.30pm tonight.

“The dark zone will require the teams to camp on the side river from 8:30pm – 5:45am, so it's critical that these lead teams get onto the water so the chase teams do not catch them,” says race director Adam Fairmaid.

“Teams Tiki Tour and Isabel Marlborough will be wanting to complete the canyoning overnight, ready to paddle first thing in the morning. It’s a pinch point that could split the race wide open,” he says.

Meanwhile, teams still back on the Stage 3 trekking at Avon Valley Lodge have made slow progress, with some expected to spend their second night out in the mountains.

“These teams are tracking about 6 hours behind our estimated times,” says Fairmaid. So, it's slower progress than expected, but there are some relatively newbies who might be finding the pace a challenge.”

“It’s been great to see young teams like Kaikoura Under 20’s and AWS Legal Motueka clear this stage today, with both on their very first GODZONE. I think it’s been a mixed bag for them, but inspiring nonetheless.”

Ten Pure teams and nine Pursuit teams remain on the stage 3 trek. Several teams have withdrawn from the race or become unranked.

“One member of Team King Country Cockies had stomach problems and was brought down off the course with the rest of the team continuing on unranked,” says Fairmaid.

“Aussie team Muppets withdrew from the field but will rejoin the course at a later stage unranked, as will team The Frontrunner Richmond with three people.”

In the Pursuit category, team True West have swapped out some team members, so are unranked, team True South are down to three people, and the local team, Allan Scott Family Winemakers, withdrew at TA3.

“The Pursuit team Spring Challenge are also making their way back to TA3 and expected to withdraw from the race but may be allowed to continue unranked,” says Fairmaid.