Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25044
as Eco-Internet moved from teenth to tenth to first in the span of 24 hours. By day three they were in the lead, dining on the mid-race catered .buffet for less than ten minutes before biking back into the bush. At the end, their margin of victory was just under two hours, but that was because they conserved their strength as they paddled along the Great Barrier Reef. They were met at the finish by: Sixteen flags of the world, the Pier Shop'ping Centre, several hun dred spectators, a camera platform mounted with camouflaged net ting (ostensibly to simulate rainforest green), a camera mounted on a boom, a couple handheld cameras, a couple cameras on tripods, and, of course, Mark Burnett. He shook their hands and welcomed them to Cairns, crowing that they had just finished, naturally, "the toughest race on earth." "We do this because we like to be in the wilderness, " said team navigator John Howard, a bearded window washer from Christchurch. "By letting people see images of us doing this, maybe they can appreciate this beauty and put pressure on people to preserve some wilderness around the world." To which Discovery Channel's Greg Moyer, sitting just a few feet away, chimed in: "That's also the reason we he Discovery Channel do this." Above the collective barf of the press co some common thoughts: No, it's not, Greg. You because it's good TV, which is the same as saying the pragmatist in all of us doesn't deny that TV is popularizes sports like adventure racing-sports ever attracting paid spectators-we just wish yo to something pre-pack Ity of the course, the iency of Mark Burnett million-dollar leader our But just when cynicism got deepest, a seemed irrevocably destined for the slag heap, a the original spirit arose, that Moyer's C0mments Team East Wind, a Japanese squad �ay behind when adventure racing ent so pure and true to forgotten. It came from Internet. The team suf- fered what seemed to be a race-endi g setback w Nohoko Hayama blew out her Achilles tendon. the leg along-the I. not ruptt:lred-she could still travel by dragging rievous that race officials pleaded with her to on the course, Mount Bartle Frere, coming feet up the side of a mountain with an teammates, t uched by her dedication the r ce through, Galrrily removed her back that weight for her t ey took turns lifting this and carrying her up the side of Bartle Frere. She rrying an extra hundred pounds up a mountain behold. A moment fJ tears of happiness and uman spirit. And it lasted just long enough to