Husband and wife Richard and Elina Ussher team up, and excel, in the ultra-competitive world of multisport and adventure racing. But can domestic bliss and international athletic success really co-exist?
There’s a white race singlet hanging on the back wall of Richard and Elina Ussher’s garage. It’s the singlet Richard wore when he won his second Coast to Coast, the unofficial multisport world championship. Scribbled on the singlet in black marker is a note signed ‘Sisu-Kissa’.
“It says, ‘Well done, I love you,’ in Finnish,” Elina explains. And Sisu-Kissa? “That’s Elina’s nickname,” says Richard, smiling at his wife.
Kissa is the Finnish word for cat while sisu has been described as “the word that explains Finland”. The literal translation is ‘having guts’ but it means much more than that. It was sisu that helped Finland resist repeated invasions by those pesky Russians. Reporting on the Winter War between the two countries in 1940, Time magazine defined sisu as “a compound of bravado and bravery, of ferocity and tenacity, of the ability to keep fighting after most people would have quit, and to fight with the will to win”.
“You can go through anything when you have sisu,” says Elina. “You don’t give up too easy.”
Richard Ussher is from New Zealand, where there is something similar, the Maori term mana, “the stuff of which magic is formed”. Sir Edmund Hillary had mana. All Blacks captain Richie McCaw has it. The Usshers have it, and it helps explain why they’re two of the most successful athletes in multisport, also known as adventure racing.
Adventure racing is an endurance sport that combines different disciplines in race formats that vary from one-day sprints to 10-day expeditions. Trail running, mountain biking, kayaking, navigation skills and rope work (abseiling or ascending) are common race elements; rickshaw relays, roller-skating, camel racing and canyoneering are some of the more unusual. It’s a sport where the ability to overcome adversity is more important than any other skill.
Take the Red Bull Wulong Mountain Quest in China last year, for example. A four-day stage race over 230km, the prologue started with a frantic bunch sprint. Elina fell over and was trampled as she lay on the ground. At the end of the second day, Richard puked behind the podium at prize giving. That night Elina picked up a vomiting bug and for the next 24 hours couldn’t keep any food down. And yet Team Ussher battled the badness in their bellies to win the race. “Elina did a fantastic job of hanging tough,” says Richard. “She just hates to lose.”
And what makes Richard tick? “He has lots of sisu,” says Elina.
Read the full story in February's issue of The Red Bulletin.
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