New Zealand teams are training hard in preparation for the Discovery Channel Adventure Race – a Southern Traverse partnership – being held in Canterbury this November.

Sixty national and international teams are confirmed to race in the 2000 event which is also the 10th anniversary for the Southern Traverse. Countries represented include Finland, France, Argentina, USA, Australia, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden, Spain and Japan, with more international teams than Kiwi teams attending for the first time in the history of the event.

Twenty-seven teams from all over New Zealand will compete and, for many racers, this will be their third or fourth experience. For New Zealand's current multisport champion, Murray Thomas, it will be his 10th Southern Traverse race with Cromwell veteran Bill Godsall.

New Zealanders have consistently won the event since its inception and last year's winners Steve Gurney, Nathan Fa'avae and Kathy Lynch are back to defend their title with the hope of picking up the $80,000 winning prize package. The team will be joined by Jeff Mitchell who replaces injured team member Aaron Prince.

"We had a lot of fun last year, finished the race in Nelson and we all agreed we wanted to do it again in 2000," says Gurney, "Winning by nine hours felt good too and it gave us the faith that we had a great team combination plus the prize money this year is a big incentive."

Gurney says his team is experienced enough to know what sort of preparation is required and most training is done individually, but recently they spent three days together. He says a variety of skills should be tested in training schedules and rogaining, weekend adventure trips, mountain biking epics and orienteering.

This year's course will be one of the most demanding to date, requiring competitors to have high levels of endurance fitness and mental agility. Held in the upper reaches of the Canterbury region, the course includes glacier travel, rafting, kayaking, mountain biking and mountain trekking. The teams of four (each team must have a female member) will race nonstop for five to six days to complete the course ensuring they all stay within 100 meters of each other at all times.

Past winners Hadyn Key, Aidan Craig and Tim Grammer from Queenstown and Christchurch had only three hours sleep throughout the four days they raced and won in 1998. Back to compete again this year as team, "inthepacific.com," Aiden Craig says sleep deprivation is part of the game.

"Being aerobically fit helps the body deal with lack of sleep, but the only real way to deal with it is to actually get some. We would catnap when we were finding it really hard to keep going and had longer sleeps in transitions before large and difficult sections."

The New Zealand Army team who came in 6th last year will be trying once again to stay in front of the Australian Army who have entered two teams this year. New Zealand team captain Peter Flint says their secret weapon will be a certain amount of cunning and good technical skills.

Flint has just returned from a six month stint in Bosnia, his second since war broke out in 1992 and he believes his team will perform well due to the nature of their army jobs.

"We are all members of the Adventure Training Centre at Burnham Military camp and so everyday we face challenging outdoor situations. Our local knowledge of the Canterbury area is good and our primary goal is to stay in front of the Aussies and finish the whole course. Anything after that will be a bonus."

The Hawke's Bay will be represented for the first time by four members of the Hawke's Bay Adventure Racing club. Tim Wilkins, Darryl Taylor, Bridget Robertshawe and George Christison have been training hard for the Discovery Channel Adventure Race and have even done the odd bit of deer hunting while out in the bush.

On a training exercise in the Kaweka range a few months ago the group spotted and killed two Sika deer using a knife one of them happened to have in their pack. The knife was so small they lugged the 120kg deer out of the ranges before being able to cut it up properly.

Two-time World Triathlon Champion Jenny Rose will be joining Hokitika brother's Duncan and Hamish Hamilton, who placed 2nd last year with their Icebreaker team. Having retired from the international triathlon scene this year, after seven years as a full time professional, she's been on a crash course of training in recent weeks.

"This is like jumping in at the deep end, but I was surprised and pleased to get a call from the Hamilton brothers as they are very strong and I'm just hoping I don't let them down," she says.

One of New Zealand's leading adventure teams has had to make the hard decision to take their name off the competitor list for this years race. John Howard, Keith and Andrea Murray and Neil Jones pulled out of the Eco-Challenge in Borneo last month after John Howard was unable to continue further due to severe foot problems. On returning to New Zealand, the team decided they would also have to withdraw from the Discovery Channel Adventure Race in November.

With only eight weeks to go, there will be many Kiwi teams out in the hills training hard as the event rapidly approaches.The course will remain secret until 24 hours before the start, on Monday, November 13, but the start town will be announced at the end of October.