Queenstown local Tom Lucas and the other three members of Tiki Tour team are leaving shortly for the 2023 Adventure Racing World Championships in South Africa. Outside Sports has a long association with Tom since he teamed up with our very own Floortje Grimmett in Godzone and 2017 World Champs, and we’re very proud to be supporting him in this year’s event.
Course hazards include lions.This year the venue is the remote, spectacular, unforgiving Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. One of the last true wilderness areas in the world, it’s teeming with wildlife including, yes you read that right, prides of lions!!!
The organisers expect the winning team to navigate the course in 4-5 days, and last team will finish in nine days. There are 10 legs with 9 transitions, with disciplines in these proportions:
- Mountain biking 65 %
- Trekking 25%
- Kayaking 10%
- Abseiling and ropework is required to reach part of the course.
Tom is a consulting engineer who grew up on Wyuna Station at Glenorchy. His early years were spent marauding in the hills and he even road a horse to school! His super-active young life on the farm turned out to be the ideal preparation for an adventure racer. When his rugby playing days were cut short by an Achilles tendon rupture, Tom acquired a kayak and turned to multi-sports, beginning with the Coast to Coast. Today Tom is an elite adventure racer with an amazing track record. He’s one of only four people to have appeared in every Godzone Adventure race so far. Tom has also competed in two Adventure Racing World Champs (once with Floortje Grimmett of Outside Sports Wanaka), the Eco Challenge, a raft of NZ multi-day adventure races, and the venerable Coast to Coast.
Now, at short notice, Tom is in the final stages of preparation for the World Champs in one of its most challenging venues yet. Tiki Tour leave New Zealand to travel to South Africa on 14th October.
In the next edition of this series on the World Adventure Racing Champs we’ll meet Tom’s team mates in Tiki Tour.