Currie and Allan beat heat to win Defiance race

World class professional athletes and race favourites Dougal Allan and Braden Currie won the Wanaka 2018 Red Bull Defiance multisport two day race in sweltering heat over the weekend.

Course designer Currie said "the conditions were fantastic, the racing was awesome and we really enjoyed it."

Allan said "this is as good as it gets for this form of racing —  it’s easily the best setting for a race like this."

The pair  who both live in Wanaka, raced together as a team in the first Red Bull Defiance race four years ago but after having a break from adventure racing for a few years Allan said he had forgotten how hard it was and was "battling away" at times during the race.

They won the race in 12hr 14min 48sec, more than 50min  ahead of Hamish Fleming and Bobby Dean, who finished in 13hr 6min 35sec. The gruelling  race included 39km of running, 40km of kayaking, 71km of mountain biking , 60m of abseiling  and even some  clay-bird shooting. The vertical rise over the two days was more than 5200m and the course wound over   eight high country stations.

Eighty-five teams competed in the elite team race on Saturday and Sunday in sapping, sweltering 30degC heat.

Currie said  the key to winning was to be strong, try to do everything to the best of your ability and to have a team-mate who could balance out your strengths and weaknesses.

"My strength is climbing and going up steep hills. For Dougal, he is super powerful on the flats so he normally sits out in front on the flats and I tuck in behind him and then I normally set the pace up on the hills."

Currie and Allan have raced together 16 times. Currie said although "ironman racing is where I am sitting at the moment" the  Red Bull Defiance event was important because it was a home race. He had just had three weeks off so it "kind of slapped me in the face to make me fit again."

Former All Black captain Richie McCaw, of Christchurch, and world adventure race champion Bob McLachlan, of Wanaka, won the sport category and were the sixth team to cross the finishing line.

It was the first time McCaw had entered the race and he said it was "probably one of the toughest things I’ve done yet, to be honest."

He described McLachlan as "an absolute machine" who dragged him up the hills on the bike.

"I guess there were always going to be tough points but the worst point was just as we got to the top of Mt Roy and I thought geez, I’m not going to be able to run down here."

McCaw said a few years ago he would never have imagined he would be doing anything as challenging as the Red Bull Defiance.

He really enjoyed it, "but it was nice when you get the view of Wanaka and you know where the finish is."

McCaw and McLachlan have teamed up for the 10-day GODZoneadventure race  in Fiordland in March.