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Chapter 5 – “Tasman”

Chapter 5 of GODZone was hosted by the wider Tasman District with pre and post event activities being focused on the stunning beach location of Kaiteriteri. Tasman District is a large area at the western corner of the north end of the South Island of New Zealand. Kaiteriteri is a small beach-side town featuring one of the World’s most beautiful beaches, with a great culture of outdoor living. Tasman is home to three national parks: Abel Tasman National Park, Nelson Lakes National Park and Kahurangi National Park, all of which were visited during the event. The landscape in the region is diverse, from large mountainous areas to valleys and plains, and is sliced by such major rivers as the Buller, Motueka, Aorere, Takaka, Matakitaki and Wairoa. The limestone-rich area around Mount Owen and Mount Arthur is notable for its extensive cave networks, among them New Zealand’s deepest caves at Ellis Basin and Nettlebed. Throw in the magnificent coastline, mixed forests and it was a terrific foundation to build a challenging and varied course on.

The Nelson Tasman region has a long history of producing great adventure racers, multisporters and  has hosted many great events. With the variety of terrain, strong field of local competitors, and community love of this sport, it was always going to be a popular Chapter and this was reflected in the fact that the event sold out just a couple of hours after entries opened. Everyone who experienced the event will reflect on the amazing community support that the teams got. We’ve never seen anything like it in nearly 20 years involved with the sport.

There is no doubt that we consider this the most successful expedition adventure race for at least a decade if you consider the positive outcomes. A large field of great racers, a new format of supported racing introduced to the event, massive media coverage with a big TV persence, fantastic national and international press coverage, record breaking live coverage following and a mass of new potential participants inspired to get into the sport. GODZone Chapter 5 left an indelible mark on the Tasman region, the sport of adventure racing as a whole and everyone who was there or who supported it can be very excited about the future.

Images and video from Chapter 5 can be found in the Images and Videos sections.  

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The Teams

There was room for seventy one teams at Chapter 5, the largest ever field at an expedition-length event in New Zealand and the largest event of it’s kind in the World. In total, 11 countries were represented – Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom & the USA – showing the appeal of New Zealand’s South Island as the ultimate adventure racing location. GODZone introduced the new GZ Pursuit event at this Chapter and 10 teams took up the challenge of racing in a supported format over a course that mirrored, to some extent, the GZ Pure event. The feedback from this new event was very positive and we believe that this will open up the GODZone experience to a lot more people going forward.

There was a particularly strong showing from New Zealand teams who were well aware of how quick entries would sell out. The event had it’s largest ever contingent of racers from the USA and the UK, including the third highest ranked team in the world, Adventure Medical Kits led by Kyle Peter. It is fantastic to see the North American teams wanting to travel to New Zealand and experience racing in the spiritual home of the sport, no doubt dreaming of being the first international team to win in New Zealand for over two decades. South Korea (team GEEKS) was represented for the very first time with a team lead by adventurer Kyu Po Pyun and team Real Discovery, returning for a second consecutive year, flew the Japanese flag. Australian teams lead the international contingent with 8 teams racing and showed, once again, a very strong presence at the event.

The event also enjoyed the company of none other than Richie McCaw, double World Cup winning captain of the All Blacks. Richie joined the New Zealand Rugby Players Association-backed team racing for our chosen recipient charity, Cure Kids. The team included NZRPA CEO Rob Nichol, Auckland Blue player Ben Meyer, the highly experienced adventure racer Sarah Fairmaid and Richie. There is no doubt that the team presence helped push the event out into the mainstream with a staggering amount of media coverage generated. The team, using GODZone as the vehicle, were able to raise $300,000 for Cure Kids which is a great thing to be able to reflect on. GODZone continues to have a profoundly positive impact in many ways.

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The Route

Both GZ Pure and GZ Pursuit teams started and finished their 2016 GODZone adventure in Kaiteriteri, completing a near 500km linear course, travelling in a clockwise direction. The route passed through three National Parks – Nelson Lakes National Park, Kahurangi National Park and Abel Tasman National Park – with a huge array of natural environments. Teams experienced spectacular ridge lines in the vegetation-free Red Hills, Beech Forest in the Wairoa, amazing limestone scenery in Kahurangi and classic mountain terrain around Mole Tops. There were four paddle sections that explored lakes, a stunning section of Kiwi whitewater in the Matakitaki River and a final flourish in the World famous Abel Tasman coastline as teams headed to their final destination – Kaiteriteri Beach.

In terms of difficulty, we’d rate this course on a par with Chapter 3, Kaikoura. There were some tough sections, for sure, and the weather was challenging at times, certainly during the early days of the event. However, unlike last years event in Wanaka, there were also stages of respite where teams could take some easy kilometres and push on to the finish in a steady fashion.

The GZ Pure event covered a distance of 517km, with approximately 10,650m of ascent. This was made up of 112km of trekking (shorter than most other Chapters and perhaps one of the main reasons the finish percentage was so high), 276km of mountain biking, 64km of canoeing, 62km of kayaking and 3km of coasteering. The GZ Pure teams also had two stages of orienteering, kindly organised by Nelson Orienteering Club, with one stage of MTBO and one stage of foot O. The GZ Pursuit event covered a shorter distance of 480km, with approximately 8,500m of ascent. This was made up of 76km of trekking, 302km of mountain biking, 47km of canoeing, 62km of kayaking and 3km of coasteering.

START – Beach start from the beautiful coastal settlement of Kaiteriteri (in front of a massive crowd)

STAGE 1 – Short section of coasteering, a sea swim of 250m and sea kayak towards Rabbit Island with a nice surf landing to contemplate

STAGE 2 – Mountain bike orienteering with teams permitted to split, briefly into two, the Silvan MTB park and a tricky night nav section through the fringes of Richmond Forest

STAGE 3 – A high mountain trek over the Red Hills which offered some high ridge scrambling over tough, rocky terrain and then some big route choices across to Beebys Hut

STAGE 4 – A relatively fast mountain bike ride taking teams into Nelson Lakes National Park with a short section of foot orienteering on the shore of Lake Rotoiti – not easy at night

STAGE 5 – A paddle and trek wrapped up into a single stage. Paddle down to the end of Lake Rotoroa, dump boats and then trek over the Mole Tops area with at least 3 route choices on offer

STAGE 6 – The most exciting section of whitewater to date at a GODZone? Stunning backcountry river section including the now infamous Horse Terrace and Earthquake Rapids

STAGE 7 – Fast section of bike riding from Murchison transiting teams towards Owen Valley

STAGE 8 – A scenic and technical stunner with teams traversing the magnificent Mt Owen massif from South to North before heading off over the Lookout Range – one to always remember

STAGE 9 – Long mountain bike stage linking Kahurangi National Park and Abel Tasman National Park, bringing teams up Takaka Hill, then down the fun Rameka single track

STAGE 10 – What better way to finish than a nice scenic sea kayak through the stunning Abel Tasman National Park to finish back in Kaiteriteri Beach

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Results

The 2016 edition of GODZone, Chapter 5 – Tasman, was won by the Yealands Family Wines team, which comprised Dan Moore, Chris Forne, Sia Svendsen, and Dan Busch. They put in a very strong performance to hold off what was almost certainly the most competitive field to date.

Second and third place was taken by other race favourites, Swordfox and Torpedo 7, respectively. Overall the perception was that the teams were evenly matched on a strength and speed perspective but it was Chris Forne’s exceptional navigational prowess that proved to be the deciding factor. American team Adventure Medical Kits pulled out all the stops in the final segment of the race to jump to 4th place. Bivouac Inov-8 followed up last years 4th place to round out the Top 5 – it was a fantastic performance by the relative youngsters.

The inaugural running of the GZ Pursuit event saw 10 teams competing for honours. The event was won by the nEVEREST team, comprised of Brendan Hickman, Anthony Oswald, David Howard and Graeme Ewenson. Second and third place were taken by Team Silky and Team Opus respectively.

Overall the finish rate for teams was exceptionally high at Chapter 5. Much higher than in previous editions – with around 70% and 80% of teams completing the full courses of the GZ Pure and GZ Pursuit events respectively. Contrast this with just 25% at Chapter 4 in Wanaka! Yes, the course was  in some ways easier, less relentless and the weather was more favourable. However, feedback from some of the more experienced racers was that the quality of racer has jumped a lot, particularly from the New Zealand based teams. We also think that the community support this year had a lot of positive impact and encouraged a lot of teams to keep going when they might have previously folded. It was pleasing to see how quick transition times have become and how much more efficient the teams are in terms of organisation – it seems that the teams now understand what it takes to prosper at GODZone and that augurs well for the future. Watch out world!

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