Tauranga's biggest multisport event has had a big growth spurt ... by 3km, to be exact.
The 11th running of the Kaimai Classic on Sunday will see a tweaked road bike course, which takes the overall distance from McLarens Falls to Te Puna out to 70km in total.
Organiser Luke Garea of
Event Day said he'd contacted athletes recently and responded to suggestions.
"The road bike is now 3km longer just because it was comparatively a little bit shorter to what the other legs are knocked out in - the top guys were doing it pretty quickly compared to the mountain bike leg and this just evens things out a bit," Garea said. "We've cleaned a lot of the fiddly out-and-back sections up and added one more stretch on Armstrong Rd which was pretty popular with some of the athletes when I canvassed them."
In his first year as race organiser since taking over from Sport Bay of Plenty, Garea has also tweaked the tough 5km run through McLarens Falls reserve.
"The parks team has made a whole bunch of new tracks out there in the last couple of years so we've linked up a few more of those, to make it more of a bush run. It's spiced things up a bit."
The run distance stays the same, 5km, followed by the 17km mountain bike down to the Ruahihi Power Station. An 11km kayak down the Wairoa River leads into the road bike, which will now be 26km, before the final 11km run around the Te Puna peninsula.
Seven-time winner, Mount Maunganui's Dwarne Farley, has already confirmed he'll chase his eighth title though he'll have a couple of handy multisporters chasing his crown.
Whakatane's Sam Clark, fresh from winning The Nugget in Waihi last month, has entered, along with Papamoa's Chris Morrissey.
The women's field has been boosted by Auckland's Louise Mark, who also won her division at The Nugget.
Jon Hume's Jamis Dragons - featuring top runners Russell Lake and Craig Kirkwood - is expected to feature in the teams event.
"Entries are tracking well and we're on a par with last year but there's usually a big influx right before the event when people see what the weather's doing."
