Neil and Fi checking the maps before starting the Stage 3 MTBWe're currently following Nga Rakau - each team's crew follows behind as 'safety' - on the stage 3 rollerblade leg.
Not the team's strongest discipline ... a European team just flew past us on a downhill at crazy speeds.
Nga Rakau got to the end of the 100km MTB leg at around 4:40am. They got all but one of the checkpoints on that leg, and apparently Neil nailed some tricky nav. They then slept for an hour and a half in the scrub near the checkpoint. They all woke up looking pretty refreshed, just have to endure this 20km of rollerblading before a big day of kayaking. So they should beat the 9pm first cutoff tonight okay.
When we left the last CP, Orion still had a couple of checkpoints to get on that MTB. They had flown through the previous kayak leg, beating the support crew to the end of the leg (not the support crew's fault - Karyn and Roy are doing a brilliant job ! - the assistants were required to wait 1.5 hours before leaving the previous CP, organisers had obviously underestimated the paddled capabilities of some teams).
So at the end of that kayak, Orion were around half an hour ahead of Nike, although we're not sure at this stage whether both have all checkpoints - there was a rumour around that Orion might have skipped one CP, although if that's the case I would think it's a 'bonus' CP not a 'regular' CP. Nike have apparently lodged a protest re the bonus CP they weren't given on Leg 1, no surprise there as it was a ridiculous rule.
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