Duo’s 11-country whistlestop tour
A pair of South African adventure cyclists are on the final leg of their 16,500km journey to deliver the match whistle that will kick off the Women’s Rugby World Cup.
While Ron Rutland and Adam Nunn are self-declared rugby buffs, the main aim of their odyssey is to raise funds for the Rugby World Cup’s official charity, ChildFund Rugby.
Rutland and Nunn began their journey on March 14 in Tokyo, Japan — host of the 2019 Cup.
Since then the duo have spent 209 days pedalling their way through 11 countries with their sights firmly set on today’s final stop at Eden Park.
There, the pair will help make history by delivering their precious cargo to New Zealand’s Maggie Cogger-Orr, the first female Cup referee to receive the whistle.
The friends’ path to the Cup — which they admitted they did no training for — took them 400km along the “incredible” Vietnamese coastline, through Cambodia, and along the length of Thailand; starting with the east coast before making a beeline to catch a local rugby tournament in Phuket.
“It was something cool for us as rugby fans to visit,” Nunn said.
The next stop was Malaysia then Singapore, Australia, and Fiji before finally wheeling into Invercargill to start their New Zealand adventure.
At some points on the trip, they had to fly between destinations when land border crossings weren’t possible due to Covid restrictions.
Despite all bikes, flights, packing and unpacking, never once did they lose track of the whistle, they said, had been through “thousands of pairs of hands”.
“World Rugby suggested we take the match whistle. That was a lot of added responsibility but an added purpose,” Nunn said.
They kept the whistle close at all times, tucked safely away with their passports.
The long haul cycle between Cup destinations is Rutland’s third.
“In 2013 I was having a bit of a midlife crisis and I’d always had a dream of doing a big adventure [ . . . ] I’d never done cycling or spent more than two nights in a tent.”
But he sold everything at home in Cape Town and headed to London, where the 2015 Rugby World Cup was about to take place.
Four years later when he had the opportunity to do it all over again — this time London to Tokyo — it was a no-brainer.
The pair encouraged everyone to get along and make the most of New Zealand hosting such a prestigious event that will not come back around for years to come.
“Cherish the moment,” Rutland said.
To donate $3 to ChildFund text RUGBY to 2474.