Gina's strong will in wanting to win has made her the 3rd consecutive champion of Challenge Wanaka. Congratulations!!! Here's her comment from the race:
"I completed Challenge Wanaka on the weekend and managed to win the race for the 3rd consecutive year. It is a really honest, tough course in a beautiful location and this year it was a real battle between myself and Rebekah Keat. Rebekah is a world class athlete who last year posted a time of 8.36 in Roth going underneath the world record. I led the race from start to finish but all day my lead kept diminishing and increasing I had a lead coming out of the swim of around 3 minutes but I really couldn't get into my rhythm on the bike for the first 90km and by the half way point this was down to less than 2 minutes. I then came right and picked up the pace and by the end of the bike I had a lead of 5 minutes. I felt great going onto the run and maintained the 5 minute lead to the half-way mark. Around that point I had a few stomach issues and had to start visiting the toilet every 3km wasting around 40sec to a minute each time, so by 32km my lead was back to under 2 minutes again. I then had to pull myself together as I really, really wanted to win, and I managed to stick in there to the end."
