Day one of the Turas has been an amazing start to the race. With blue skies interrupted by only a few minutes of clouds. On top of Mt Brandon we caught up with Orion Health pounding up the rocks in an impressive speed very closely followed by Team Wilsa Helly Hansen with Irish man Eoin Keith leading his team. I ran next to him for a few minutes and he was beaming “the speed here is a lot different today! Its great, makes a big difference to being behind Peter O’Farrell”. Mountain biking and trekking stages today were lightening quick with the first 7 teams closely grouped together all the way. Team New Zealand Adventure Sports, a team lots are closely watching, suffered a broken chain on the bike stage to their dismay which put them further down the field in the first stage.

The first few teams arrived into Ventry Bay at around 10.30am and had a nice break from racing until they set off again on the special kayak sprint race at 1pm. Team Orion Health zipped around the course in lightening quick speed but nevertheless closely followed by a recovered Adventure Sport NZ and Vibram La Fuma. It looks like its going to be very close racing all week!

The leading Irish team is Irish AR Denny who are just off the main leading pack and holding up well in the middle of the field. We suspect that over the length of the course they will go from strength to strength. As teams pull into Dingle Pier they will board buses to be transported to Schull where they will set up camp for the night, take a break, and get ready for the onslought of 5 days of non-stop racing on Tuesday morning.  

Schull will welcome the visitors with a parade and concert by Dog Tail Soup on the pier.