Thirty-five two-person teams will put a new multisport product to the test tomorrow when they line up for the first Red Bull Defiance adventure race.
The course, designed by Wanaka-based multisport athlete Braden Currie, traverses Lake Wanaka and the mountains around it and incorporates running (48km), mountain biking (71km) and kayaking (12km) over two days.
And just to add another adventure or two, there is a clay bird shoot and abseiling along the way.
The race starts at Minaret Station and finishes in Wanaka.
The event is the brainchild of Auckland-based Agema Group director Patrick McAteer, who believes there is room in a crowded multisport calendar for one more world-class race.
McAteer, who is race manager, has spent two years pulling the event together and chose Wanaka as ''one of the best places in the world to do it''.
His focus has always been on creating a course that would attract international interest.
''From day one it was designed to match some of the best international adventure racing tracks in the world.''
McAteer said the running of the event also needed to match the standard of similar events overseas and that meant the setup was ''over capitalised''.
Including three camera crews shooting a 20-minute documentary for ESPN, there would be 120 people running the event for the 70 athletes.
''It has to be done properly,'' McAteer said.
''Nothing can be left to chance in terms of the calibre of event we wanted to put on.''
The race organisation was geared to cope with a maximum of 150 competitors, he said.
''If we could [have got] to 100 competitors in 50 teams, that would have been a massive result for year one.''
McAteer said new adventure races usually had relatively low numbers in year one ''and it is a build from there''.
''So we are really happy with the calibre of athletes that we have got.
''That mixed section of one-man, one-woman in the mixed elite - that's probably one of the best line-ups in the world.''
It includes Nelson couple Richard and Elina Ussher, Glen Currie (Methven) and Jess Simson (Wanaka), and French couple Jackie and Mimi Boissett.
Wanaka pair Braden Currie and Dougal Allan are expected to be strong contenders among the men's teams, although there is no shortage of experienced adventure racers in the field.
The Breen Homes team of Bob Mclachlan and Keith Murray is described in race notes as ''the old guys, but still fast''.
Murray holds the record for the fastest Coast to Coast time and Mclachlan wears the title of ''the toughest man in the race''.
Peter Hewitt and Malcolm Sincock, calling themselves ''Team Cannon Fodder'', are in their 50s and part of the field that expects to ''just plod along towards the back and hope to make it''.
Among the women's teams are Floortje Draisma (Wanaka) and Sia Svendsen (Christchurch), with a long list of successes in multisport events next to their names.
Also in the starting line-up is a team called All About The Adventure, consisting of Kristy Jennings and Cat Pattison.
For Pattison, who is an Otago Daily Times motoring writer, the race will simply be about finishing.
''The race will be a big challenge for two mums-of-two,'' she said this week.
Asked if he could see the Defiance developing into an international series, McAteer said he was focused on delivering a world-class event in Wanaka.
''But you can give yourself a quiet moment to think you could take this globally.
''We would like to think we can build it up and make it successful enough that we could maybe drag it overseas. But Wanaka will always be its home.''
