The Defiance endurance race returns to Wanaka next weekend and the second instalment of the 160km, two-day, two-person-team race looks to improve from 2014.
The men's elite team and mixed elite team categories will feature more of the best adventure racers on the planet and competition for the winner's titles in each of these divisions is expected to be extremely fierce.
Along with the addition of an even stronger international field, the most significant change for 2016 is the inclusion of a women's elite category.
There is an overall prize purse of $32,000, and an additional $10,000 worth of product vouchers.
Teams of women have entered from all around New Zealand.
In the men's grade, defending champion Braden Currie, who teamed up with Dougal Allan to win the first race, will not be lining up.
He is concentrating on trying to make the New Zealand team for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in triathlon.
But the course he has designed for the event will remain more or less the same.
The one change is at the end of the first day, where the 15km run on the Millennium Track into Wanaka has been replaced by an extended kayak leg.
The final paddle will now be 17km, from the West Wanaka bridge transition area into the Wanaka township.
There will be no respite on the gruelling second day.
Defiance's final stage will remain the same, as athletes taking on the iconic and challengingly steep 25km Skyline ridge run, after the 28km Criffel Range mountain bike ride and the day's opening 20km kayak.
The race is over 100km of private land and, by deleting the run into Wanaka and extending the kayak leg, the organisers are seeking to provide an exciting close-fought finish on the Wanaka waterfront.
The high-ranking Australian team consisting of Jarrad Kohlar and James Pretto will be seeking to outrace the young New Zealand team of Hamish Fleming (Wanaka) and Sam Manson (Auckland), making for a classic transtasman rivalry showdown.
The ultra-competitive adventure racing Team Thule will split from a four-person team into two teams to race around Wanaka.
Jacob Roberts, who has been competing in multisport, adventure and stage racing for more than 20 years now, both in New Zealand and abroad, is racing with Rickard Norlin.
The mixed elite team category has the cream of the world's male and female athletes entered. Wanaka-based dynamo Simone Maier will race again with her partner and adventure-racing legend Marcel Hagener.
Other members of the Thule team Martin Flinta and Helena Erbenova have raced all over globe together, and will be competitive next weekend.
Also looking for a strong finish will be the Red Bull team of South African superstars Ryan Sandes and Bianca Haw.
Although they are not experienced multisporters, they are specialised in their fields, which are ultra-running in Sandes' case and mountain biking in Haw's.
Richard and Elina Ussher will not be defending their mixed elite team title, as Richard Ussher moves into the back room of the event.
He has joined Defiance's organising company, the Agema Group, as a director and shareholder. He will take on a strategic developmental role in Agema Group as the company expands its event footprint.
