Though 80 kilometers of tough nighttime mountain biking lay ahead, the exhausted team remained poised, laughing and joking as they readied their cycling gear. "They're going to have to chase us off with dogs," quipped Ruben Mandure, an accomplished triathlete.

Added teammate Nestor Parra, a curly-locked lifeguard from Montevideo, "Or with elephants."

Team captain Leonardo Perez: "The thing that matters is willpower."

The other half of the team, judo champion Leonardo Perez and mountaineer Tatiana Goldoni, competed in Eco-Challenge Argentina last year but did not finish. They hope to redeem themselves this year in Sabah.

According to Parra, team captain Perez got the foursome together by "scouring the country for the very best athletes." Perez jokes that he found them in a swamp. Regardless, it's clear these athletes are here to have fun.

"We came to do the race," said Perez, who was not even tempted to stop and sleep for the night. "The thing that matters is willpower."

Two days before, on brutal island terrain near PC 5, Team Uruguay was one of two teams involved in a treacherous rescue, carrying Naomi Spina of Team The North Face [go to Team Bio] to safety. Spina had torn her ACL and was immobilized when Parra, Perez, members of Team Turbo and her teammates came to her assistance. As a result, Team Uruguay's trip between PC 4 and PC 7 took 26 hours, 38 minutes.

"These guys really embody the spirit of the race for me," said PC volunteer, Roxana Espoz, explaining how the team had constructed homemade bike boxes. "They've worked so hard to be here. They really want to be here," she said.