A New Zealand team was leading yesterday, late on day three of the inaugural Godzone adventure race in Fiordland and Queenstown Lakes.
One of the country's leading adventure racing teams, Seagate, opened up a one-hour lead over the rest of the field on Monday's overnight trek on the Dunton and Livingston mountains.
The team, led by Nathan Fa'avae and Sophie Hart, along with Chris Forne and Trevor Voyce, arrived at the Mavora Lakes checkpoint at 8.37am after battling for the pole position with team Subway throughout the night.
The Subway team of Richard Ussher, Elina Ussher, Braden Currie and Sam Clarke was only minutes behind as it entered the trek stage, but fell behind by morning and was fourth late yesterday.
"Subway was hanging on to us like a pack of Australian leeches and we knew we had to try and shake them.
"About 2km before navigating our way up CP5 we sprinted ahead for a few minutes on the track, turned off our headlamps and then dived into some bushes and rolled around on the ground a bit while Subway ran on by.
"It was really quite funny," Fa'avae, from the Seagate team, said.
Team One Square Meal of Sia Svendsen, Ian Edmond, Stuart Lynch and Ross Rotherham also passed Subway overnight and was second last evening.
Seagate looked reasonably fresh beginning the day-long bike ride along the Oreti River before heading into another overnight trek on the Eyre Mountains yesterday.
The team members have had just five minutes sleep since the race began on Monday morning.
Race director Adam Fairmaid said the battle between teams Seagate and Subway had been prominent from day one.
"Team Seagate and Subway stamped their mark on the course quite early and put a lot of pressure on each other trying to see what each other had.
"It's been interesting to watch them push each other and I think Subway set out to try and rattle Seagate, but Nathan [Fa'avae] and his team-mates pulled out a strategic race tactic which has now given them a good break on the field."
Australian team Blackheart.com is in third place.
The rest of the field is spread out over the course and the distance between these teams is expected to widen significantly as the leaders push hard to make it through on the full course.
The Godzone Adventure race is the first unsupported expedition-style, adventure race to be held in New Zealand since the world's inaugural event, the Raid Gauloises, 22 years ago.
It is part of the Adventure Racing World Championships, an international annual circuit of premiere adventure races in 10 countries forming the Adventure Racing World Series.
