PRETORIA, 19 SEPTEMBER 2008: Land Rover South Africa today announced a squad of twenty athletes for the second round of Selections – the Nationals – in the search for the country’s two-person team for the Land Rover G4 Challenge which takes place in Mongolia in June and July next year.
The company’s General Manager of Marketing and Sales, Roland Reid, said that Tatum Prins, Jeannie Bomford, Abbey Mediema, Susan Erskine, Christine Woods, Hanlie Booyens, Jennifer Soutar, Jeanette Walder, Robyn Ferrar and Susan Sloan would do battle to determine which two women would go forward to the International Selections in England in February, while Jan Schutte, Andre Gie, Richard Colby, Iain Don-Wauchope, Craig Carter-Brown, David Bruiners, Graham Bird, Mike Hewan, Olivier Feuillet and Ryan Hodierne would be looking for the men’s positions in the team.
“To see people from all walks of life giving it their all, helping each other and supporting each other at this year’s Regional Selections was a privilege,” he said.
“We had an incredibly strong group to choose from and so we expect that National Selections – which start in Lesotho on October the 9th – are going to be incredibly exciting and very closely fought.
“South Africa’s Martin Dreyer is the current Challenge champion, which makes us the defending nation and people like Ed Tilston (the Land Rover G4 Challenge’s Global Manager) and teams from other competing countries are likely to be watching what happens at our Selections with keen interest.
“This means that the ten men and ten woman who’ve qualified for Lesotho will have to up their game considerably: it’s too late for any meaningful physical training, but they’ve certainly got enough time to hone their skills at navigation, map- and compass-work and the use of the GPS.
“The winning participants will need to be competent strategists, good athletes, team players and great ambassadors for our country – and finding people with these combinations is what Selections is all about,” he said.
“I congratulate the finalists and look forward to seeing them in action next month.”
More information at landroverg4challenge.com. A South African supporters group – “Land Rover G4 Selections South Africa” – has been created on Facebook.
