SARLA / eLan / Jeep / Mercury Challenge

The weekend’s events came to a close after three successful days of adventure for the South African Rugby Legends, eLan, Jeep Apparel and The Mercury all of whom competed in the Legends Challenge.

The first day had thrills and spills in the Blythedale coastal forest where competitors had technical problems with their bicycles, or encountered phenomenal wipe-outs in the 16km mountain biking race.

Following that was the colourful orienteering with paintball target shooting, retrieving balls from a foam bath, “Zorbing” - a giant rubber ball around an obstacle course, and the challenging Gladi-antics creating the four obstacles that teams had to conquer. Jeep Apparel was the overall leaders on day one.

The spectacular Simbithi Golf course greeted players on Saturday morning with The Mercury creeping up the log to give the other teams a run for their money.

Day three began with wet weather, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of everyone taking part in the warm Durban waters. Before dawn, the off-shore fishing competition began, launching from Durban where the conditions proved perfect for hooking the ‘big one’.

At a more decent hour, the water challenge at uShaka Beach took off with all participants having to learn new sporting codes. First up was the flag race familiar to all lifesaving events. Olympic gold medallist, Ryk Neethling gave the eLan team a huge boost.

The kayaking proved a bit more testing. Everyone had to paddle around the Spirit of eLan catamaran that was moored offshore. From the breakers, the four teams moved across to the traditional Durban water sport, surfing. Competitors had to remain standing on their board for as long as possible to gain the most points.

New to South Africa is stand-up paddling where you had to negotiate your board around a buoy in the uShaka Marine canal. Balance and stamina was needed for each person to succeed.

The final event was the Cook-Off at Riverside where ‘chefs’ were thrown into the deep end, being presented with a plate of ingredients with which they had to create a dish good enough for the cooking channel – all in 20minutes.

The challenge was a raving success because of all the team work that was involved. The overall winner was Jeep Apparel with eLan coming in a close second, the South African Rugby Legends completing the medals and The Mercury rounding off the table.