Team Painted Wolf: Expedition Racing Team
What happens when you mix adventure, multiple sporting disciplines, a touch of insanity and a healthy dose of competition?
You get Expedition Racing!!
Here is another thing you might not know – in the last international competition (held here in SA) our own home grown Team Painted Wolf won the event and convincingly as well.
From the outset it was local team Featherbed Painted Wolf who set a furious pace, pulling away from race favourites and world ranked #7 team Merrell Adventure Addicts, who were defending their Expedition Africa title. And they kept that pace up throughout the next 3 days, 12 hours and 33 minutes to record a comprehensive win, even spending extra time going back to collect a missed checkpoint, and still winning 3 hours 44 minutes ahead of the second placed Merrell team.
The next international meet is in Australia (Adventure Racing World Championships) later this year and our winning locals are hungry for another win. http://www.xpd.com.au/
Teams of four competitors from around the globe trek, mountain bike, and kayak for four to eight days in this world renowned expedition. These adventurers race day and night over a 550-600km course pushing themselves to the ultimate limits of human endurance. All team members complete all sections of the course and they must never be separated by more than 100m.
Team Painted Wolf consists of 4 members: Mark Collins, Robyn Owen, Andre Gie and John Collins
Mark explained to me that during the SA championships – they finished the race in 85 hours. Of those hours they only slept for 3 of them.
“Imagine doing the Comrades Marathon, The Cape Argus and the Duzi Canoe Marathon all back to back, 3 times over without rest and doing them all off road through some of the most inhospitable terrains imaginable. That is a lot what Expedition Racing is like ”
The team derives its name from the direct English translation of the Latin name for the African Wild Dog Lycaon pictus or “The Painted Wolf”. Team Painted Wolf are raising awareness for the “Endangered Wildlife Trust”
We wish them well in their preparation and training for the World Championships in November. You 4 are Awesome South Africans.
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