Akaroa buzzing with GODZone competitors

AKAROA BUZZING WITH GODZONE COMPETITORS

Akaroa is buzzing with GODZone competitors today as the official GODZone team welcome and registration gets underway in the historic Banks Peninsula township.

Christchurch Deputy Mayor Andrew Turner addressed GODZone teams at this morning’s official welcome ceremony held in The Gaiety at Akaroa.

“We are thrilled to be hosting all of you in this beautiful part of New Zealand, in Akaroa today and through Canterbury for the rest of the week. I hope you really enjoy your time in our region and take away some great memories of the adventure.”

The event boasts a world-class line up including current world adventure racing champion Chris Forne, who has won every chapter of GODZone bar one, with current Coast to Coast Women Champion Simone Maier, Emily Wilson and Marcel Hagener.

Australia’s top A1 Adventure Series team lead by Rob Preston and South Africa’s leading team Jabberwock led by Cobus van Zyl are also part of the field. International competitors have come from USA, Scandinavia, Canada, Argentina, Czech Republic, France and Europe.

“We have over 250 adventure racers from around the world plus media and support crews here for Chapter 8,” says GODZone Event Director Warren Bates. “Christchurch NZ are the location host this year and its thanks to them that the event is being run in Canterbury. The event will shine a spotlight on this region amongst the international adventure racing community and we expect hundreds of thousands of viewers will be following these teams throughout the week on our live ‘GPS tracking’ website.”

Team Bend/Yoga Slackers from the USA were impressed with the course details revealed for Stage one of the event that kicks off 9am tomorrow (Sunday March 10th) from the Akaroa harbour.

“It looks like a very interesting course with the inclusion of the Christchurch Adventure Park tomorrow. We plan to race hard and fast and try to win the international trophy for the second year in a row,” says team captain Stephen Thompson.

Event director Warren Bates says he hopes locals and the people of Christchurch will come out in support of the teams as they head off on an adventure like no other.

“The course will reveal a lot of Canterbury that people have never seen or experienced before. The GODZone GPS tracking website will go live at 8.50am tomorrow making it easy for everyone to follow the team’s journey. But there is a great opportunity on the first day of racing for locals to come out and see the teams in action and at the Christchurch Adventure Park.”

About the GODZone Adventure Race
• GODZone is one of New Zealand’s leading multisport events and the largest expedition length adventure race in the world.
• GODZone was founded in 2012 by adventure racers Warren Bates and Adam Fairmaid whose vision was to bring adventure racing back to New Zealand.
• New Zealand is considered the ‘home’ of the sport with the world’s first modern day adventure race, the Raid Gauloises, directed by Gerard Fusil, held in NZ in 1989.
• There have been 7 GODZone chapters held since 2012 each year in a different location including Milford Sound, Mt Cook, Kaikoura, Wanaka, Tasman, Queenstown and Fiordland.
• GODZone teams are made up of four people and must include at least one female
• Teams travel around the course unassisted carrying their own food, clothing and most equipment. They must stay within 100 meters of each other at all times.
• There are three GODZone racing categories; Pure, Pursuit and Prime.
• GODZone course routes vary in length each year between 400km – 600km. The race usually runs between 6 – 10 days.
• The course remains a secret until the race starts.
• Teams are provided with topographical maps and a course route book. They must navigate their own way from checkpoint to checkpoint within certain timeframes to make various time cut offs along the way.
• The largest GODZone was held in Fiordland in 2018 with 100 teams racing.

Follow developments of the GODZone Adventure Race here:; http://www.facebook.com/godzoneadventureorhttp://godzoneadventure.com/

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