23 secondary schools from around the South Island battled it out for the South Island Secondary Schools Adventure Racing Championships on Saturday 27th March on a demanding course around the high country surrounding the Central Otago town of Cromwell. The event is in its second year.
The race kicked off at 6:30am in slightly damp conditions which soon cleared as teams headed off from the Roaring Meg Power Station up into the high alpine region of Mt Pisa climbing to 1475m past check point 2 before descending into the Lowburn Valley, Race Director Bill Godsall had warned teams at the course briefing navigation choices here would be crucial and that was how it turned out.
On the next MTB orienteering leg the front teams continued battle it out. After this section teams swapped MTB for kayak to paddle across a choppy Lake Dunstan to the abseil site, the Lake got progressively choppy with every passing minute forcing the Race Director to transport the remaining teams to the abseil site by rescue boat effectively turning the event into 2 categories. 8 teams completed the kayak leg before the cancellation of kayaking and they continued their battle onto the last MTB orienteering leg, the remaining teams who had been short coursed continued to battle it out for short course honours.
The last leg had a slight reshuffle of places with most teams surprising not only themselves with their speed but the support crews and staff who gathered at the finish line in Cromwell to await there arrival.
Southern Lakes Multisport who ran the event had set a great challenge for all teams to tackle with the day going very smoothly and once more every athlete completing the course under 12 hours.
Verdon College had three teams entered and all ended up in the short course section because of the choppy lake conditions.
The Boys Results
1st Place: Verdon College 2
Micheal O'Reilly, Ben Boyle, Peter Thurlow and Dylan Coombs.
2nd Place: Verdon College 1
Shane Adcock, Patrick Stone, Gavin McLeod and Keiran Thurlow
Our younger team - Aidan O'Neill, Terry Thurlow, Robert Lindsay and Harry from SBHS - finished with style after a challenging race.
