East Gippsland Adventure Challenge event coordinator, Maria Plyashechko, said the second running of the Lakes Entrance-based event was a success with competitors praising East Gippsland’ s unique landscape as ideal for adventure racing.
Doubling in competitor numbers from the inaugural 2017 challenge, which was marred by horrid weather, Ms Plyashechko, who was also a competitor on Saturday, said racing across the multisport event (mountain bike, trail run and kayaking) was electric with a fast-finishing result in the men’s solo race.
Yesterday’ s events consisted of the O-Duathlon – a combination of navigation-based running and mountain biking – and the kids challenge orienteering activities, a short run, an obstacles course and then a paddle in the water with a parent.
Ms Plyashechko was pleased the sun was shining on Saturday following last year’ s rain-affected event.
“Saturday was a really great day, it was stunning weather,” she said. “Local racer, Tim Boote, and James Pretto, James won a sprint across the footbridge, they finished together on the surf life saving club side and sprinted across the bridge and James won at the end.
“The women’ s race was won by Bern Dornom, from Melbourne, and I was second.
“Overall we had around 70 participants, which was around double. Today (Sunday) is a bit wet now, but Saturday was just perfect, an ideal day. Everything went really well on Saturday.”
Ms Plyashechko said competitors came from across Victoria and interstate, with a handful travelling from Canberra to take part, including a world masters mountain bike orienteer.
The general consensus from competitors was East Gippsland is a great base for adventure racing.
“A lot of the participants were commenting that everyone enjoyed the mountain bike trails and quite a few admitted the paddle was really spectacular with Lakes Entrance offering great opportunities for spectacular paddling,” Ms Plyashechko said.
