SPORTSRITE - Indomitable Aussie duo can have their kayak and eat it, too

With Tim Eves
ABOUT now, James Castrission and Justin Jones must be wondering what the hell they are doing in a kayak about 500km off the west coast of New Zealand.
Their attempt to be the first to cross the Tasman unassisted seems an assured success. Make that a qualified success - and just how unassisted do you have to be to actually be "unassisted", anyway?
It would be hard to argue with Castrission and Jones, two intrepid Australians for sure, as they alight from their kayak.
If they make it, that is. There are still quite a few paddle strokes and some treacherous waters to go yet.
On arrival, they will have paddled every stroke of the 2000km journey, and good on them - but they haven't had to navigate, thanks to the on-board computer that also lets their Mums call every night to make sure they have changed their underpants.
I doubt they will be suffering from scurvy when they get here either and, on arrival, they will be welcomed by customs officials and quite possibly representatives from the sports drug agency.
Abel Tasman didn't get much "assistance" either, when he sailed from Australia some years ago - and his welcome consisted of two waka loads of very angry natives.
No doubt Castrission and Jones don't feel like they are getting as much assistance as they would like right now, 28 days into the trip.
But it is kind of symptomatic of the sporting climate these days that, at the same time Castrission and Jones are paddling a kayak eastward across the Tasman Sea, a rowing crew of four are sculling westward - and going much quicker.
Hence this carefully crafted catchphrase the two kayakers posted on their website to describe their project: "Australias (sic) last great first adventure."
The rowers will arrive in Australia much sooner than the kayakers will wash up in New Zealand, so will that make Castrission and Jones "Australia's last great second adventurers"?
In order to be noticed in the sports kingdom now you need to be outrageous, because being first these days is obviously getting grammatically more difficult.
Hence the growing trend for adventure races that last seven days and send competitors into untouched rainforests, across deserts _ and on a marathon that starts from base camp two-thirds of the way up Mt Everest. Traditional sports lost their mojo in Noo Zeelund this year, especially when our icon teams started losing the big games.
So now you have to be the biggest or the baddest - preferably both. If you don't have money then get your kit off and send the photos to the local paper.
If you're staring down the barrel of a thrashing, say something contentious in the earshot of a microphone and hope nobody notices the scoreboard while the vitriol spews forth.
Getting a sell-out crowd to watch a few dudes chase a round ball around a field is only achievable by booking "the most marketable man on the planet".
Hosting another World Cup tournament to watch a few bigger dudes chase an oval ball around a paddock means spending $250 million in every major city in the country, so when the spectators get here, they'll feel like they are somewhere else.
Not much of this makes sense, we know, but the competition to make sense of sport is so intense these days that Chinese officials have bulldozed entire suburbs for the Beijing Olympics.
And plans for the bobsled and luge tracks for the 2014 winter Olympics in Russia require levelling a swathe of iconic forest, mostly for parking.
Perhaps Castrission and Jones have got it better than they think. All they have to worry about is the next paddle stroke - and to make sure the laptop is turned on when Mum calls.