Thule Adventure Team proves to be world class – again!

Wulong, China, 4 – 6 September 2010

Thule Adventure Team, one of the world’s best multisport teams, has proven to be a truly successful combination of strong individuals with the right spirit. Reaching 2^nd place in the prologue, 3^rd on day 1, 2^nd on day 2 and 1^st place on the last day, Thule Adventure Team ended up as 2^nd team in total. A great achievement by team members Martin Flinta, Richard Ussher, Elina Ussher and Nathan Fa’avae!

The Chinese race Wulong Mountain Quest includes long distance runs, cycling and mountain biking along winding mountain trails, rafting and kayaking in challenging waters, and caving, abseil and climbing. For Thule Adventure Team the race included quite some dramatic parts, as you will find in their report below.

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“Prologue”
We finished second in today’s prologue about 40 seconds after Toread Adventure (the team that won the Baise and Le Grand Raid). Still feels good that we did not win, given that we won both Baise and Le Grand Raid prologue and then they passed us. Now we hope the other way around:)
We have 1minut back to today's surprise Kolumbs from China, then 1min further to the former Nike (now Vail), then Orion Health is just behind in fifth place. It was incredibly fast on the first races, though we had both a lifejacket and trail shoes we ran with an average of 3:15min/km first two kilometres according to the GPS, still ran a couple of teams off with a 15 sec, average was 3:20 when the last kilometre, consisted of some stairs both up and down. Then we lost some time when we would wear Elina in something like an imperial chair. But we did enough in both cycling and rafting then. 40 sec will be tough to catch up on such a strong team, but our strongest areas kayaking and mountain bike, hopes we will do difference ...

Day 1
After 8 km run, 6 km kayak, 10 km run, 30 km mountain bike, caving, 5 km run, abseil, and 1 km run to the finish line.
Team Thule ended in third place in today’s race (day1).
The team ran and kayaked well but was unlucky with a side wall puncture on the mtb after the third attempt they managed to fix. There they lost much valuable time.
The team finished in third place in today's stage. And is now third overall, 17 minutes behind the leaders, Toread, but just one minute after the second team Vaul.
The competition continues tomorrow...

Day 2
Today's race has gone well.
We finished second in today's stage (day 2), three minutes behind the winning team.
We are also before the last day in second place in total about 20 minutes after the leaders Toread.
The day has passed without any major hitches. Only incident today was when Elina flip down a slope during cycling and landed tem meters down. Fortunately, she survived without major injuries only with a bite sore knee. But it took a while before we got her up and her mountain bike on the road again.

Nathan is super strong, especially in the paddling he paddles as an entire jet engine;)
Tomorrow is the last day of the race where the race will be settle.

Last day of 2010 Wulong Mountain Quest
Have been really nice and tight today.
We were able to win today's final leg with a minute over Toread, overall winners. With Nike chasing just behind it and a Chinese team to four. The day consisted of running 2 km - 12 km kayaking - 6 km and 1000 meters of altitude mountain running – 9 km duathlon (bike and run) – 48 km MTB. We were up in line after kayaking, but Toread passed us and was 1-2min before, which they held for about half the MTB ride before we could pass and win the stage. We were in total in second place, Tore won and Nike finished third.


Martin Flinta
Team Captain Thule Adventure Team