Endorsed by Nikwax, Team Helly Hansen have had an outsanding success already this year…
The British team were a very late addition to the roster having secured sponsorship from Prunesco, Chile's leading prune exporter, just 2 weeks before the race start.
Amongst their key rivals were previous winners EasyImplant (France) and Buff (Spain), as well as QuasarLontra (Brazil) who recently placed 4th in the AR World Champs.
The PER takes place in the southernmost part of South America and has become known as the “last wild race”, and despite being in a southern Summer this year's race was more wild than most, with temperatures 10 degrees lower than normal, and incessant wind and rain most days.
Hypothermia was a common complaint amongst racers. Conditions suited the Brits just fine as they dominated from the start, with just the French able to match the initial pace, and even they started to fall back as early as stage 2, as the Brits turned up the heat as the race turned to mountain bikes. The Brits, later described by event director Stjepan Pavicic as “one of the best teams that had ever participated in this competition thus far”, kept up a relentless pace at the front and their rivals gradually fell by the wayside, with just 4 teams starting the final trek stage, which the Brits entered with a 5hr lead over the French.
With the final stage expected to take three days, everyone recognised that this wasn’t yet a race winning lead. With conditions, if anything deteriorating the Brits stormed through to the finish taking just 2hrs sleep as they completed the stage in 62hrs, extending their lead to 19hrs over the French who eventually took 2nd place with Spirit Canada a distant 3rd and the only other team to complete the course. The whole race was epic from white water paddling in sea kayaks to a 10km head on crossing in the sea into a force 6/7 with 5-7m swells. The biking was fast averaging around 20km/hr, the treking sections not so fast with forests only allowing travel of 3km in 8 hours.http://www.patagonianexpeditionrace.com/en/news_detail.php?news=7 |
