CareFirst Taranaki Super Challenge

A New Legend is Born

When John Collins fused Hawaii’s top swimming, cycling and running events together he created the IRONMAN and the rest is, as they say, history. While Taranaki’s race directors have slightly less ambitious goals than world domination, they also know that their events rich histories and loyal following should also lead to a match made in heaven.

The three race organisers have combined their individual races, the Flannagan Cup Open Water Swim, the Round the Mountain Cycle Ride and the Mountain to Surf Marathon to create the inaugural CareFirst Taranaki Super Challenge. Competitors who complete all three classic events will receive a specially designed finisher’s plaque and the not to be sniffed at bragging rights of being part of that very first Super Challenge. For the more athletically talented among us, the male and female with the fastest cumulative time will gain extra kudos by being crowned Champions of this new legendary event.

The Three Challenges

Egmont Seafoods Around the Mountain Cycle Ride 153km 14 January 2012

The Round the Mountain Bike Ride has an esteemed history stretching back nearly a century. New Zealand’s second oldest cycle race was held over the clasic distance of a hundred miles providing a worthy test for many of New Zealand’s best cyclists over the last hundred years.

Next year's Egmont Seafood’s Round the Mountain Ride will start and finish its 153km circuit at New Plymouth’s Pukekura Race track. Riders will head out along Surf Highway 45 towards Opunake through the lush dairy pastures that surround the majestic Mount Egmont/Taranaki. After catching a glimpse of the famous Taranaki surf, cyclists then head up a long gradual climb towards Eltham before joining the main road back to New Plymouth. The last thirty kilometres are mercifully mostly down hill, with a couple of hills near the city boundary just to remind you, you have just ridden a hundred miles.

Flannagan Cup Open Water Swim 3600m 6 February 2012

The Flannagan Cup Open water swim was first held in 1916 to raise money for a war veteran’s charity. The first hardy pioneers set out to swim the cold open waters of the Tasman Sea between the ports breakwater and East End Beach 5.5 kilometres away. In what has become a trend for the race, it produced an upset result when the 18 year old pacemaker W. Davis saw off his more fancied rivals by being the last man swimming when he reached the shore.

The current race format has a handicapped start which, in theory, gives everyone a chance to win the race and still produces its fair share of weekend warrior winners. The switch to a multi-lap inner harbour swim and the inclusion of wet suited swimmers in the 3600m Cup race have seen its popularity grow in recent years. The traditional race date of Waitangi Day makes for warm water and sunny conditions for swimmers and spectators. Over recent years celebrity swimmers such as Olympians Danyon Loader and Shane Read and New Plymouth’s very own human dolphin Charlotte Webby have added star power to the starting line up.

Bayleys Mountain to Surf Marathon 4 March 2012

The Mountain to Surf Marathon started much later than the other two local endurance events, during the so called running boom of the nineteen eighties. Back then a few locals thought about the possibility of designing a marathon course that would use the gradual down hill slope of Mount Taranaki to create a fast Boston style point to point race. In 1980, one of those schemers, Gerald Dravitzki, put the plan into practice and won the inaugural race in a time of 2h16m29s. The courses reputation for fast times was established with eleven out of the first thirteen races won in times under 2 hours 20 minutes. Matt Dravitzki’s course record of 2h13m02s set in 2006 is the fastest time run by New Zealand man in New Zealand since Rod Dixon’s 2:11:21 in 1982. In 1992 the incomparable Bernie Portenski’s set the women’s course record of 2h34m39s at a sprightly age of forty something. The dawn start at the Egmont National Park boundary gate on autumns first Saturday makes for a cool first couple of hours to help you reach your new PB on this fast course.

If you think you are up to the challenge and want to test yourself why not give the inaugural CareFirst Taranaki Super Challenge a go.

John Lykles

For more information on these events and how to enter, go to the CareFirst Taranaki Super Challenge web site