Helly Hansen win

Nga Rakau cross the finish line

In the end the British team Helly Hansen took out the race, finishing with 52 CPs.

On the finish line, Nike were told that they were 3rd behind Lundhags, but I see on the leaderboard it's showing Nike 2nd and Lundhags 3rd. George was limping down the road after the finish, I asked him if his feet were broken, he said they'd been broken since Wednesday. He was pretty disappointed as I think he felt he hadn't contributed as strongly as he usually does.

Orion were also a little disappointed, although their teamwork still got them through at the end as usual. Anna's tendonitis had almost crippled her at the end, and Stu piggy-backed her for a fair distance down the beach during the last trek. Maybe frustated is a better word, and I think all the leading teams (except maybe Helly Hansen!) felt that the format was somewhat difficult to come to grips with. I think they'd generally be happier with the standard 'fastest team around a set course wins' format.

Apparently the defining moment for Lundhags was when they were late to the castle at the end of the stage 4 trek leg. Because they were in danger of missing the next cutoff, they took a different option on their the next MTB or the start of stage 5, I'm not sure which. Basically by sacrificing the CPs on one leg, it gave them time to pick up more CPs later in the race, and move ahead of Orion. Another example of where it seems a bit strange that a team who does more of the course finishes behind one that's cut off some of the course.

Nga Rakau jogged down the last stretch of beach to the finish and were pretty happy with their race, ending up in 32nd place. Their teamwork was good, Neil's nav was great, so was Tim's (although he'll tell you that he hardly did any), Mark was strong and Fi was tough. They also found the format and the 70 maps a mission to deal with. They enjoyed the Portugal experience as much as the race. They've got loads of stories, I'll try to write some down when this mess is cleaned up.

Near the end

We caught some sleep last night, so I don't really know what's going on !

Alexandre, the race director was on the phone to Geoff Hunt last night telling him that 'Nike are losing' (he's prone to exaggeration) and 'Orion are way behind' (more exaggeration).

That was before the last two legs, both were pretty tired, and having to miss CPs to keep on time. Anna's feet are pretty sore, Sonja tried to get some Paracetemol out of the red cross guys at TA16, he looked at her feet and said it wouldn't help, and wouldn't give her any. Genius. Anna's one tough girl.

Nga Rakau have had the CPs for Stage 3 corrected on the leaderboard, so are back in 33rd, hope Neil's navigation brain is still working for the last two legs which supposedly included tricky navigation.

Middle of Stage 5

Mark looking a little the worse for wear...


Nga Rakau just came through the end of the Stage 3 Leg 3 MTB. They only picked up the easy CPs, as they still have to fit a 35km trek, 65km MTB and 25km trek into the last 21 hours.

Neil is feeling a little bit toasted at the moment, apparently when things got desperate on the last leg, they stopped at a cafe for coffee. Mark pointed to a tray of food in the cabinet and asked him which things he'd like, he said 'probably all of it'. Which they did. Then ... story according to Mark ... some old local chaps came in and asked in Portugese the equivalent of 'where the f&%k is all the food ?'. The old duck behind the counter pointed at Nga Rakau's table and replied in Portugese the equivalent of 'those greedy pricks'.

Orion and Nike will also be shortening this MTB, as there's a 2pm cutoff here, and it will be fairly tight. It's 1:26pm now, and neither are here yet.

Interesting goings-on in the night

It was a night of action at TA4. After the flurry of activity around Nike's arrival and hasty departure - the TV cameraman loved the footage - said you could cut the tension in the air with a knife - there was more to come later in the morning.

Rumours were flying at the end of the kayak, that Orion had 'lost' a team member last night. My unofficial version of the rumour is thus...

After their sleep out of the transition, Orion headed out on the 12km trek to the top of the river, and somewhere en-route, when they were with one or more other teams, people split to walk either side of a building. Another team was walking behind Orion, and Stu, Brent and Anna didn't realise for a time that Wayne was no longer with them.

When they realised that Wayne was missing, and searching was unsuccessful, they pulled out their emergency phone and reported that they'd misplaced him. Sometime in the next couple of hours, Nuun came across Wayne in the bush, and led him to the top of the kayak where he was reunited with the team.

We're not sure whether this will incur a penalty, and what form it will take. Will probably depend on how loudly Nike protest.

Nike arrived at the end of the river about 10 minutes ahead of Orion. Both of them had only got the easy CPs on the leg. Nike were freezing and having trouble sorting their gear to take on the next leg. Brent and Anna looked chirpy, Stuart and Wayne a bit groggy. Best comment was from Stu when Karyn informed him that there would likely be a gear check on the next leg and they should double-check they had all their compulsory gear ... Stu replied 'it's ok, we've got Wayne now'.

Orion at end of Stage 4

Orion arrived at 22:30 and slept for an hour while Karyn and Roy repacked their bags. They left debating whether to sleep at the start of the trek and miss the kayak (cutoff 2am) or sleep during the kayak. They left at 23:55 as Nike arrived.

Nike left with seconds to spare, loaded up with sleeping gear which they will have to carry during the trek and kayak before the start of the MTB / kayak gear pickup.

This must all be making Helly Hansen's position look pretty good....

Nga Rakau are now riding the roads to the TA, as any controls punched after the midnight cutoff don't count.

correction...?

Oops - I may have been a little hasty in reporting that Lundhags has pulled out ... although I was told that by a 'reliable' source, their transponder is showing them well into the MTB course, so that might be a better indication ...

Still waiting for end of Stage 4

Lots of tension round here.
Will Orion make it here before midnight.? A while ago we were thinking no. Now we're thinking yes. Teams have been taking 3-5 hours to get from the town of Ortiga to the end of the leg, and Orion were there around 7pm (although we don't know exactly which route each of the others took).

Nike's transponder hasn't been working all day, so we don't know where they are on the course, but we've been told they left on the start of the MTB about 2:30pm, around an hour after Orion. Helly Hansen - who are showing on the leaderboard in 2nd place at the moment, are only a few kms away from here now, so they might be the first to arrive.

Nga Rakau definitely won't make it here by midnight, but having a sleep in transition and skipping the next kayak still seems a good plan for them.

One of the crew who was at the transition at the start of the MTB said Orion spent over an hour in the transition, most of the time studying the maps. They're obviously thinking hard about their strategy for the rest of the race...