Spring Challenge Te Anau : Women's Adventure Race

Adventure seekers go south

450-teams of three women will be converging in the southern lakeside town of Te Anau today for the 16th edition of the Spring Challenge women’s adventure race. The event was created by adventure racing legend Nathan Fa’avae who has recently returned from winning the Adventure Racing World Championships in Paraguay. He captained the New Zealand adventure racing team Avaya to their 7th world championship title. From racer to race director, Fa’avae will enjoy the sidelines on Saturday.

The Spring Challenge was the first women’s adventure race in the world and quickly grew to be the most iconic and biggest single day adventure race on the planet. The event visits a new location each year and some years will cater for up to 600-teams, depending on the host venue infrastructure. For a smaller town like Te Anau, the event is limited to 450-teams.

Fa’avae runs the event with his wife Jodie and their staff team, approximately 100-strong.

The town of Te Anau is thrilled to be hosting the major event which is a welcome injection to the economy after the impacts of Covid. Great South, the Southland Regional Development Agency was instrumental is attracting the event to the region, which has been supported by the Southland Regional Council, Department of Conservation and Meridian Energy.

Teams will gather in Te Anau on Friday for registration and the event briefing. It will be here that they will find out the course information and receive the race maps for Saturday. The course is embargoed until the event day.

Teams will be spread over three main events, the 3, 6 and 9-hour divisions. These are the projected winning times for the divisions, which essentially translates to beginner, intermediate and advanced. Within the divisions there are numerous categories, from school teams through to super veterans, the Spring Challenge caters for a huge range of skills and abilities.

The core disciplines are rafting, mountain biking and hiking, with teams having to navigate through a series of checkpoints from the start line to the finish line, in numerical order. Route choice and decision making can be important strategy factors in the event. The 9-hour teams will have a kayaking stage included in their challenge.

Starting at first light on Saturday, the course will be open for 18-hours for teams to complete their respective races.

The course for 2022 is a Lake Te Anau to Lake Manapouri traverse. Teams will start in Te Anau on their bikes and cycle on the Lake-2-Lake trail to the control gates at the Waiau River. From there they park their bikes and board rafts for an 11km paddling stretch to Rainbow Reach.

Here the teams will collect a resupply box, and transition to hiking. The different divisions will walk a mixture of the Kepler Track, Harts Hill and the Forest Burn, to return to their bikes at the control gates. The hiking stage is described as quintessential Fiordland National Park and is expected to be a highlight for the teams.

Once on bikes again the teams will descend the Lake-2-Lake trail to the shores of Manapouri. For most teams it will be a short and sharp beach run to finish in the township of Manapouri. For the long course 9-hours teams, they will hop into kayaks for a 9km paddle into Hope Arm, portaging from Surprise Bay to George Bay. Then they hike to Waiau River for another dash in kayaks to Pearl Harbour, and onto the final beach run to the finish line.

Fa’avae designed the course last year and comments “one of the things I wanted to create in the 9-hour event is a very dynamic and engaging course, with skill and decision making challenges frequently throughout the course. It’s not just about speed to be successful”.

Overall event director Jodie Fa’avae adds “this is an incredible event to be part of. It’s always so humbling for us to see the women step up to challenge, everyone is on different stages of their journey, some are seasoned adventure racers but many are first timers, it’s so great that they have the courage to be here, I am always so thrilled to see them reach the finish line, it means so much”.

The event attracts some of the countries elite athletes through to complete beginners. The race can be followed on the event day via the Spring Challenge Facebook and Instagram pages, with the full results uploaded to the event website.

Spectators are welcome to watch the action at the Lake Te Anau control gates and Lake Manapouri.

Event sponsors:

Great South, Real Meals, Merrell, Sea to Summit, Juliana, Real NZ, Torpedo7, runEZ, Starborough, Ems Power Cookies, CamelBak, Wicked Rogaines, Tineli, PURE Sports Nutrition, CDdesignz, Factory Road, Okarito Sandfly Repellent, BUFF, Roommate Cabins, Chia Sisters,

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