Silva Haglöfs came in thrid overall, behind New Zealand’s team Toread and the multinational team Thule. The last day provided some close racing with the top four teams all coming into the last transition within sight of each other. Today all four of us were on form for the first time so we were really able to keep on top of the pace.
The prize giving ceremony for the overall ranking in Wulong Mountain Quest.
Today’s course
1) Orienteering 7km. On this leg it was allowed to split up the team to take the 6 checkpoints, in any order. We split the team in four and finished the leg first.
2) Run 7km. Steep downhill through the bush. Steep drops on the side of the path and amazing scenary! We managed to hold our narrow lead over Thule.
3) Kayak 6km. Kayaking on the lake back and forth two times which gave us a good overview of the teams behind. We’re still in the lead, 1 minute ahead of Toread.
4) MTB 37km. Started with a steep uphill and then the muddiest downhill so far. We kept up the pace and Thule, Toread, Tineli and Haglöfs Silva were all within sight of each other in the final transition.
5) Caving/run 8km. We were second into the cave and managed to keep our placing to the finish. We jumped into several deep pools on the way through and were happy to have good waterproof headlamps on! A lot of other teams came to the finish line with headlamps not functioning after all the swimming in the cave and following canyon. The scenery and limestone formations here were very beautiful, thats why this area of China is called “the middle of the earth”.
After a hard sprint finish through the cave we finished second today, 4 minutes after Thule and 2 minutes ahead of Toread. Tineli who were close behind us at the start of the caving section lost a bit of steam at the end and finished about 15min behind.
This years Wulong Mountain Quest was characterised by tough MTB stage that were brutal on the bikes, and a lot of teams lost time with various mechanical issues. We had slightly heavier tyres and even carried oil with us so we were able to avoid most of the problems other teams suffered. There was also a lot of mud out on the course making it absolutely necessary to have glasses on during the biking, we saw several fellow competitors attending the medical tent after stages to get mud out of their eyes!
Many locals wanted to take photos with us.
Overall results
1 Team Toread 16:36:37
2 Thule Adventure Team 16:44:38
3 Team Haglöfs Silva 17:13:54
4 Tineli NZ 17:34:58
5 Moxie Gear/Nuun 18:01:42
6 Oso Negro 18:12:28
7 China University of Geosciences 18:49:57
8 www.peakadventure.com.au 19:01:52
9 Team Redbull 19:06:10
10 Team Kolumb 19:30:47
Congratualtions to good work and third place! Due to the first day injury, it was an achievement to remain in the race and end up on the podium.