Athletes expected to fail Revenant challenge

Southland will play host to a new ultra-marathon where people are expected to fail.

The ultra adventure run called The Revenant will see competitors try to complete a course of more than 190km in 60 hours, with no support, and only a map and compass to navigate.

The race will take place on Blackmore Station, which straddles Southland and Otago and is home to the Welcome Rock Trail.

The Revenant race director Scott Worthington said it was possible to complete the course, but he and fellow organiser Leroy de Beer were expecting no-one to finish the race.

Worthington said the race concept was based on the Barkley Marathons that are run in Tennessee in the United States.

Started in 1986, the event sees 40 endurance athletes try to complete a race that is more than 160km long and has no specified course.

Only 18 people have completed the race since it was first started, and more than half of the races ended without anyone finishing.

Worthington himself had tried to enter the event three times without success, so decided to start his own event.

Worthington and de Beer designed the course and say it is not impossible but improbable that competitors will finish.

More than 50 people expressed interest in taking part and of that, about 15 were rejected for not being good enough, Worthington said. Since then, several more have dropped out due to injury and Worthington was expecting about 26 people to take part.

The calibre of competitors was very high and included several international endurance athletes, as well as a number of military personnel, he said.

While the race was physically challenging, Worthington said it would be also mentally challenging.

Competitors would be given an envelope at the start of the race that contains a mental challenge that can only be revealed to them towards the end of the race, he said.

The race was ultimately about learning because people would have to attempt that race multiple times in order to develop a strategy to win, Worthington said.

Welcome Rock Trail founder Tom O’Brien said he was excited about the event because it was something unique that no-one else was offering.

It would be one of the toughest events in New Zealand, if not the world, he said.

The race starts on January 18.