Any one of six or more athletes could win the national elite men's orienteering championship in Auckland this weekend.
Best performed of the likely stars is New Zealand resident Carsten Joergensen, a world championship relay gold medallist for Denmark in 1997 and individual bronze medallist two years earlier.
Now 38 and the New Zealand Orienteering Federation's high performance director, Joergensen is widely rated as the yardstick for this country's best, particularly since two of the top rated athletes, Ross Morrison and Chris Forne, are living and racing in Europe.
Joergensen is wary of the experience of the likes of Darren Ashmore, of Rotorua, and Aucklanders Neil Kerrison, Thomas Reynolds and James Bradshaw in Woodhill Forest, where the long distance race, the premier event of the championship, will be contested on Sunday.
Six-time national champion Ashmore is certainly relishing the prospect of going into his first major event in years feeling race-ready as he aims for a comeback to top competition.
Ashmore, 37, credits a recent move from Auckland to Rotorua, where he lives just two minutes away from the Whakarewarewa Forest, with its hundreds of kilometres of offroad trails, with restoring his motivation to train hard.
"It's now nice to be in a position where you're not getting by on guts," he said.
