Posted: May 30, 2006

Triathlon: Registration opens for Challenge Queenstown

International media visits course

Queenstown Skyline

Registration opened Monday for the inaugural Challenge Queenstown, an iron-distance race in Queenstown, New Zealand, set for January 20, 2007. Athletes may enter at www.challenge-queenstown.com. The race is the first partner event for the Quelle Challenge Roth in Germany, the world’s largest long-course triathlon.

On the website, athletes can find course maps and information about the race and the surrounding area, one of the world’s greatest adventure destinations and home to a vast, unspoiled wilderness of mountains and glacier-fed lakes—with many locations made famous in the film trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.” The race has a professional prize purse of NZ$90,000, with NZ$15,000 to the winners and payouts through 10th place.

Also this week, international media got their first look at the challenging course, which includes a 2.4-mile swim in Lake Wakatipu, a rolling two-loop, 112-mile bike course that stretches from Queenstown to Glenorchy, a tiny hamlet 46km away, and a three-loop lakeside marathon run.

Queenstown Bike Course

The two embedded photos from Tuesday’s course reconnaissance, one showing the swim course from the Skyline Gondola and a second showing the road heading out past Bennett’s Blufff on the bike course.

The Quelle Challenge Roth also launched a new website devoted to its partner race at www.challenge-live.com.

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