- by Phil Wain
Land Rover Challenge, Australia
Rudi Thoelen of Belgium and Dirk Ostertag of Germany looking at the leader board prior to the start of the last leg of the Land Rover G4 Challenge.
21 April 2003: It does not get any more quintessentially Australian; on one side the sparkling sails of the Sydney Opera House. On the other, the gargantuan girders of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. And in between, the battleground for the final test on the Australian Stage of the Land Rover G4 Challenge – the Sydney Maximiser.
A triathlon with a difference - a two and a half kilometre sea kayak across the most beautiful harbour in the world, a run across the bridge - known affectionately as ‘The Coat hanger’ - into the heart of Australia’s biggest city and then on towards a perilous four-wheel-drive course aboard a massive ocean-going barge.
“Australia has been the most challenging part of the Land Rover G4 Challenge and so it’s fitting that we make the last Maximiser down under as tough and as spectacular as the place itself,” said Simon Day, competitions director.
Just after eleven o’clock on Easter Sunday, as most Sydney residents were drawing back their curtains, the 16 multi-national competitors broke the surface of the harbour with their paddles at the mass start of the kayak course. Ahead of them lay a crossing of one of the busiest waterways in the world - on waters made all the more choppy by incessant ferry traffic.
It was the competitor’s second taste of watersports Sydney-style. Shortly after dawn they tackled the famous waves of Bondi Beach, a haven for surfers the world over.
“I was chilled to the bone by the time we started the kayaking,” said the UK’s Tim Pickering, an accomplished sea kayaker based in Scotland’s wild Outer Hebrides.
Pickering, though, got a bad start and it was local hero Guy Andrews, who powered through the waves faster than anyone else. By the finish he had a full kilometre lead and was already on the far side of the bridge by the time the final competitor, Shinichi Yoshimoto, was out of the water.
“Mate, this is my living. I do a lot of surf life saving and we use surf skis, so I was pretty confident,” said Andrews.
Andrews’ accomplishment was tainted by a disastrous paddle by his partner Sergey Polyansky. He finished the kayaking in the last three and was unable to make up time on the run.
“I fell off four times and every time it got harder to get back on and that really cost me a lot of time,” said Sergey. “I am sorry for Guy because he did a great kayak and run.”
The battle for Maximiser honours fell then to the closely matched pairings of Arabia /South Africa and France /Turkey. South African Chester Foster finished second in the kayaking but was hounded by Frenchman Franck Salgues, Chris Perry of Arabia and Turkey’s Cüneyt Gazioglu.
“I did not even have time to take off my lifejacket, I just hit the dock and started running,” said Foster.
With the result an amalgamated time of both team members, it was too close to call by the time the four of them reached the end of the run at Wharf 8 on Darling Harbour – site of the 4x4 driving course.
“Either team can win now,” said Salgues. “It is all down to the driving.”
Three weeks after this global adventure began with a 4x4 Maximiser beneath the neon lights of Times Square in New York, the teams were reunited with some of the of the tough obstacles in Sydney. Instead of negotiating Yellow Cabs and New York fire hydrants, this time the treachery of the test was in the venue – aboard an ocean-going barge. The harbour swells made the barge rock from side to side, further testing the driving skills of competitors.
Like New York, an early downpour made the obstacles slippery. Grip for man and machine was at a premium as the teams worked, one in the car and the other outside navigating the way over ramps, a tilting seesaw and turntable.
The line between safe and sorry was fine. Alberta Chiappa of Italy had a very close call in her vehicle. “I felt the car tip but luckily the grip is very good and I stopped from going over,” she said.
Time penalties for Franck and Cüneyt destroyed their chances of fending off Chris Perry and Chester Foster – whose driving skills matched their running and kayaking to give them the win.
“At last. I have came so close to winning a Maximiser all event and now I’ve got one,” cheered Chester. “It was a close one too. Franck and Cüneyt had problems on the driving but Guy Andrews (Australia) and Sergey Polyansky (Russia) made up for their problems on the kayaking with a great drive.”
The competitor’s Australian odyssey started a week and 3000 miles away in the far north west of the country. The Pilbara is where the Outback meets the Indian Ocean, a red savannah rich in diamonds, iron and gold.
It is the Wild West, down under. Temperatures can reach 50 degrees. The fauna is some of the most deadly in the world and distances between towns are measured in hundreds or even thousands of kilometres. But it is also a place of stunning natural beauty. Inland from Karratha is the Karijini National Park, a maze of gorges in the West Australian Outback. For three days they were the heartbeat of the most arduous stage yet on the Land Rover G4 Challenge.
Unlike the previous two stages, which had each started with a Maximiser, the Australian stage started with a full day of ‘Hunters’ - locations that teams visit in order to score points.
The undoubted stars of Day One were the South Africa/Arabia pairing of Chester Foster and Chris Perry. The only blemish on an otherwise perfect day was a burst mountain bike tyre, which saw Foster running most of the mountain bike section. They managed to visit three Hunters during the day - a feat equalled only by Australia/Russia
Two teams really struggled to get their Australian Challenge going. Belgian Rudi Thoelen, partnered with Germany’s Dirk Ostertag, made the mistake of following team UK/Italy onto a mud flat. As a result of recent rain in the area, the mudflat proved difficult to negotiate and cost both teams valuable time.
“I’m just glad of the training I received back in the UK,” commented Tim Pickering after his mammoth struggle to get teammate Alberta Chiappa and the Range Rover unstuck. “The extra day I spent training at Eastnor Castle dealt with precisely this situation, and I was able to effectively plan a way to get us out.”
The Hunter names for Day 2 were uniquely Australian - like Mount Bruce, Mount Sheila and Mosquito Pool. Standing 1,235 metres tall and consisting of high-grade iron ore, Mount Bruce is Western Australia's second highest peak. An energetic walk to the summit would normally take 2-3 hours. Triple Australian surf lifesaving champion Guy Andrews blasted to the top and back in an hour and ten minutes. “That man’s a machine,” said Turkey’s Cüneyt Gazioglu as he and his French team mate Franck Salgues prepared to take to the hill.
The only team begging for worse conditions and hotter weather were one of the top seeded pairs, Chris Perry and Chester Foster of Arabia and South Africa.
“We were expecting forty degree temperatures. Because we are used to the heat that would have played right into our hands,” said Perry. “But even without the heat this whole competition is getting more and more intense. Those who are struggling are making big mistakes.”
Chris and Chester were involved in a stand off with the French/Turkish pair. Both arrived at the end of the Hammersley Gorge Hunter hoping to be the third team to finish and score maximum bonus points for an accurate prediction. In the end a coin was tossed and Chris and Chester took their 3rd full score of the day.
In a break with tradition, the remote Maximiser in Australia came mid-week. It also brought drama. Guy Andrews was leading the first pack of competitors into Knox Gorge at the end of a mountain bike and running section. A wrong turning at the foot of the gorge left Andrews and three others heading away from the next test in the Maximiser - a combined kayak and swim.
“Because the others were following me, I figured it was the right way. I was just in race mode and going for it,” said Andrews, who reappeared after two hours in the bush. “Only when I’d been going for an hour up the gorge and was out in exposed country did I realise I’d got it wrong. But the thing that really concerned me was seeing a couple of snakes. One of them was a taipan, I think, and if you get bitten by one of those then that’s pretty well it. You have about three minutes to live!”
The Maximiser course was designed to test team strategy. Each pair of competitors were given the choice of two routes to use, on course for a common finish point at the foot of the spectacular, stepped Joffree Falls. The strengths of each partner would determine which route they would complete.
The first route was eleven kilometres of bone shattering mountain biking on a corrugated path, connecting to a perilous climb into the red sandstone gorge and then a kayak/swim to the finish. The second route was shorter on the bikes but longer in the gorge and included long sections of portage - carrying the kayaks over walls of slimy rock.
The winning score was the aggregate time of the two partners. In the case of the South African/Arabian duo, Chester Foster and Chris Perry, the success of one was nullified by the disaster of the other. Foster won his route but Perry was one of the trio lost with Guy Andrews. Foster could not believe his bad luck, which has struck again for the third time in three Stages of the Land Rover G4 Challenge.
“This was going to be my pay day,” said Chester. “Since getting to Australia I have halved my deficit to the leaders. Today I reckon I could get up into the top four overall.
“I was on form. I was faster than Franck (Salgues, of France) and Franck is a machine. But Chris’s problems have killed it for me. I am running out of days fast now. It’s not over yet but I need some good luck and soon.”
Franck was second on his route and his partner Cüneyt Gazioglu of Turkey won the other, making them the winners of the Maximiser.
On Thursday, the last day of Outback competition, the teams were given six possible locations between Marble Bar, the edge of the Great Sandy Desert to the East and the white sand beaches of the Indian Ocean to the North. The most remote Hunter involved a combination of kayaking, climbing and swimming in the depths of the Carawine Gorge on the fringes of the desert. The closest town to the East is Alice Springs, over 2000 miles away.
Sergey Polyansky of Russia was lucky not to hurt himself when he fell whilst abseiling off a razor sharp cliff. He was saved by his Australian teammate Guy Andrews.
“It was a nasty place to slip and I am very pleased Guy and some others were on the end of the safety rope,” said Sergey.
In another abseiling task, based in the Comet Gold Mine on the outskirts of Marble Bar, Italy’s Alberta Chiappa dropped the electronic key that she and the other competitors use at the start and finish of the Hunters. After recovering her key she had to climb a 75-metre chimney to find the next checkpoint.
Her teammate Tim Pickering of Britain had a fright as he ventured into a cave on the same task. One of the first teams into the cave, he startled some bats, which flew right at him.
“Luckily I have done a lot of caving and was half expecting it,” he said. “But it certainly got the heart racing.”
The harshest Hunter of the day was an orienteering test round through hot rocky terrain teeming with snakes and carpeted in razor sharp spinifex grass. It caught out South African Chester Foster and Chris Perry of Arabia.
“We expected the checkpoints to be up high but the first one was buried in the grass. It took half an hour to find it and that was the time we’d expected to do the whole thing,” revealed Chester. “This stage has not gone my way.”
Good Friday was the long awaited rest day in the Land Rover G4 Challenge. The teams chilled out on the sugar white sand of Eighty Mile Beach between Port Hedland and the pearling centre of Broome.
From Sydney the teams will endure their last tiring intercontinental flight on this globe-circling adventure. To add insult to injury, by crossing the International Date Line, Monday 21st April will come twice in this relentless challenge. “It’s hard enough coping with 24 hours in 24 hours,” said Chris Perry. “But hey, we are on the home stretch and one of us is going to be taking home a Range Rover by this time next week.”
The ranking going to the start of the last leg is: Ranking: Stage 4, USA 1. Rudi Thoelen - Belgium - 2,446 2. Franck Salgues - France - 2,412 3. Chris Perry - Arabia - 2,266 4. Guy Andrews - Australia - 2,144 5. Paul McCarthy - Ireland - 2,138 6. Erik den Oudendammer - Netherlands - 2,124 7. Cuneyt Gazioglu - Turkey - 2,108 8. Chester Foster - South Africa - 2,083
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