Kaya Grabs the Goat by the Horns, as Swedish Orienteers Shine

Goat 2024 Review

Men’s Podium (Left to Right): Sjors Corporaal, Kaya Corporaal, Albin Ridefelt - Photos4Sale / Victory Events - All Rights Reserved

A little bit of overnight rain and some rocky technical trails were no match for Kaya Corporaal on Saturday as he took out his first Goat title. Kaya took to his opposition in a manner akin to taking a flamethrower to a gun fight, beating his father the irrepressible Sjors by 1 minute and 39 seconds and scorching the rest of the field by putting over ten minutes on all other comers across the 20km race. Sjors produced an impressive showing by holding his own to the hut, which marks around 3/4 into the race trailing by a slender 33 seconds, but lost a further minute and 6 seconds to his son in the final quarter of the race going up the waterfall climb, up Mama’s Mile and through to the finish. James Coubrough’s course record of 1hr 48min 25sec from 2011 remains untouched however for another year.

Kaya Corporaal tames a river crossing - Photos4Sale / Victory Events - All Rights Reserved

The arrival of Swedish couple Johanna and Albin Ridefelt gave this year’s Goat an international flavour. Johanna currently ranked 14th in the world in Orienteering, ran away with the Women’s race and finished 8th overall just one minute from the course record, leaving Goat regular Lance Downie to draw upon all of his local knowledge and experience to keep her at bay by a mere 6 seconds. While Albin a former European Orienteering champion in 2022 placed third overall and produced a solid time in his first Goat on the rugged and unforgiving course. Johanna however retained some bragging rights for their trip home, beating her husband’s time up Mama’s Mile by producing an electric time of 7 minutes and 9 seconds. For those yet to suffer the agony of dragging themselves up Mama’s Mile here’s some context; the Strava segment puts the climb’s gradient at 10.7% a steep but still a relatively tame grade that most good road runners should be able to keep their legs ticking over on. However after running the previous 18 kilometres on undulating, unstable and technical terrain you may as well be running up the thing with a large piano strapped to your back.

Women’s Podium (Left to Right): Maia Flint, Johanna Ridefelt, Miriam Clark - Photos4Sale / Victory Events - All Rights Reserved

Coming home as 2nd and 3rd women Maia Flint and Miriam Clark both finished high up in the overall field with a 13th and 20th place respectively. The two Mountain Goats have strong international racing futures ahead of them moving towards Canfranc 2025. Having built up some experience now, both have demonstrated success on Ruapehu’s slopes is not defined by bursts of explosive speed, but instead by persevering and holding a steady unrelenting pace throughout. Featuring amongst the top men’s placings were also Rudi Smith (4th) off only a week’s rest since 3rd at the Taranaki Off-Road Half Marathon, Bobby Dean (5th) a former Mauao King of The Mountain Champion, Tommy Hayes (6th) 4th at the recent Luxmore Grunt and in the Women’s field multiple New Zealand champion and former Goat winner Sabrina Grogan (4th) and Kate Moore (5th) who finished 2nd at last years Toi’s Challenge.

Miriam Clark makes her way up the waterfall climb - Photos4Sale / Victory Events - All Rights Reserved

The atmosphere, the organisation and the landscape of the Goat is fantastic and 2024 appears to have been no different, the event once again proved to be a pinnacle event where top technical athletes were able to thrive. Next up in the major events calendar Jumbo-Holdsworth (27th January) and the Tarawera Ultra Trail (17th-18th February).

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