HONG KONG, Dec. 15, 2010 /PRNewswire-Asia/ --With the top adventure racers all out at war at Sunday’s Patagonia Action Asia Challenge everyone new it was going to be competitive but it turned out to be the most competitive race in years and possibly history as only 48 seconds separated the top 2 Chiru teams with Champion System Adventure not far behind.
“Cosmo deserves the adventure racer of the year award. Phenomenal performance as he smoked every bike, kayak, river rock section and just kicked my butt the whole way” said overall team winner Jeremy Ritcey who partnered with Richards on Team Chiru winning the 43 km course in 4 hours 16 min 38 sec.
“Loved the whole course especially on the rocks as just relished the technical stuff every time we hit it” said Richards of Team Chiru.
Race leaders were playing cat and mouse thru the race as when they hit the San Shek Wan gorge after 39km it was Chiru Endurance’s Pierre Le Magnan and Marc Thirwall who came out on the beach leading with only 4km remaining.
“Mate, Hong Kong has so much to offer with some incredible terrain as a wicked course set. Being from Beijing we have to go further out to find the good stuff but you have it on your doorstep. Hopefully if everyone puts their minds too it we can also create some cleaner air out their as well”, said Thirwall from Chiru Endurance Asia who claimed 2nd overall in 4 hours 17 minutes 26 seconds.
Just under 5 minutes later and much closer during the earlier stages in the race came Stone Tsang Siu Keung and Ryan Blair of Champion System Adventure who have a history of winning this race. “Wasn’t our day. Stone was cramping a bit. Just want to say an awesome performance from these two top 2 teams especially the winners as they did really well,” said Blair of Champion System Adventure who claimed 3rd overall in 4 hours 22 minutes 22 seconds.
Participants started a 2km easy warm-up run involving crossing a river stream and 500 meters running on sand before they get down to business of 15km mountain biking at the famous technical Chi Ma Wan loop. Then over 4km of ocean kayaking into a head wind to the beautiful Tai Lo Wan at the backside of Chi Ma Wan, an uphill and rocky 5km technical single track trail run, another 4km ocean kayak to get back to Pui O beach, 5km of rock scrambling and climbing down waterfalls, with a final cliff abseil and 2km coastline rock scramble to make sure participants had absolutely nothing left in their legs or bodies.
“It’s great that Patagonia, Landrover and CLP all supported this environmental cause of promoting a cleaner air and sea in Hong Kong. Now if we can just get a few more people to get into our beautiful outdoors, turn off that electricity switch, hopefully it might lead us in the right direction” said Michael Maddess Race Director & Course Designer from the Action Asia Foundation.
The race could not have happened without the generous support of Patagonia, Landrover, CLP, Vitasoy, Flying Ball, Budweiser, Friendly bike shop, Gatorade, Dymocks, SRAM, Wun Pang Bike shop, HK Bicycle Company, Treasure Island, OL&N and the Action Asia Foundation.
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Michael Maddess
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Ms Jasper Lee
Tel: +852-3158-0251
Email: events@actionasiaevents.com
