Glen Currie: Coast to Coast Race Director on the multi-sport event returning this weekend

One of the country's most iconic multi-sport events returns today. 

The first day of the South Islands' Coast to Coast kicks off from Kumara Beach, with athletes biking, kayaking, and running to Christchurch's New Brighton Beach. 

Around 1,700 participants are competing in the 43rd edition of the event. 

Race director Glen Currie told Andrew Dickens Klondyke Corner will be an unusually busy spot, full of spectators and competitors. 

He says the odd tramper is normally the only one at the Arthurs Pass National Park campsite, but there will be seven thousand people there tonight. 

Records could also be broken this year. 

Currie says that Simone Maier is going for a sixth win in tomorrow’s Longest Day event, which would give her the most wins for any female ever. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Coast to Coast kicks off today in the West Coast,
and organizers say they're expecting this year's elite longest daycad
agree to be one of the most thrilling and competitive
in the year's forty three year history. Coast to Coast
Race director Glenn Curry is up early and joins you now, Holly, Glenn.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
How are you, Andrew?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm good. Sometimes when I do this show, I worry
that you know, you guys, the town isn't going to
wake up in time. But you've got a big day.
So you've been up for a while.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
I bet yeah, And I know we start pretty early
over the next few days, so you know well and
truly up, and a lot of the athletes are up
to now and starting to roll into that first transition.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Excellent. How many athletes have you got over.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
The two days. We've got total around seventeen hundred athletes
and we're about six thousand support crews. So that's what's
going to be moving across the South Island today.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Paint a picture for those who've never heard about the
Coast to Coast or even thought about the Coast to Coast.
I mean, what are these poor athletes facing.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
So the Coast to Coast is forty three years old.
It starts on the west coast of the South Island
over I'm just just south of gray out here on
the beach on Serpentine Beach. The athletes basically from there
they cycle fifty five kilometers into the base of the
Southern Alps and then they across the Southern Alps through
a pass known as Goat Pass. The two day athletes

(01:13):
stay the night after that run at Klondike Corner on
the East coast, and then they cycle eighteen k before
kayaking seventy kilometers down the Wye Macerri River and then
finishing with a seventy k cycle to New Brighton Beach
and christ Church. And the one day athletes start tomorrow
and do the entirety of that in the in the day.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Basically sounds awful.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
There's a lot of smiling people around here. We would
argue it's a pretty special experience and if even coming
to have a look at the whole event is it's
pretty amazing. It's humanity at its beef og.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, I get that. So there's the thing. You've got
loads of athletes, how many spectators actually make the trek
up to Goat Pass wherever in the hinterland to watch
this thing.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah. So Klondyke Corner is one of our busiest areas.
That's in the middle Arthurst Pass National Park and usually
you'd see the odd odd trembrough whatever camped up there.
But we'll have about seven thousand people kemp there tonight.
We basically set up the village for all the competitors
and supporters tonight, so we have a full village there
and there's a lot of entertainment down there today. So yeah,
and then on the finish line tomorrow at New Brighton,

(02:17):
you know, we get up to over ten thousand people basically, Yeah,
down at New Brighton tomorrow, so be exciting.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
It sounds as big of th Mount Everest. So here's
the question, who's going to win?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Ah, that's yeah, and that that is a great question
this year. So we've got some incredible athletes, you know,
probably some of the big names that we've got some
mo Mao's actually going for the record of wins tomorrow
of six total wins and that'll be the most wins
of any female in the history of the event. And
then we've got a guy by the name of Sam Clark,
who's back. He's won the event a number of times

(02:52):
and he's fairly excited. But you know we have an
Australian and Australian hasn't run the event since nineteen ninety three,
and there's a really really TALENTEDUS Tralian and Alan Alex
Hunt's just you know, he's chomping at the bit and
he got second last year just so he'll he'll be
you know, he'll be here. We going for it and
then last year's winnehemous Elliott the men. Yeah, the race

(03:13):
is just going to be super close. That very exciting.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
This has been a great interview and I thank you
so much. You know, good luck and I'm sure it's
going to go well. You sound like a good bloke
and I thank you. And that is Glenn Curry, who
is the race is the race director for the Coast
to Coast which kicks off today.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
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