Expedition Africa Namaqua West Coast 2018
Russian Blizzard Sweeps Expedition Africa
Rob Howard / 23.05.2018
Do they have dark horses in Russia? It seems they do as the little known Team Blizzard AR from Russia are sweeping all before them and have taken the lead on the penultimate stage of the race. Who would have bet on them at the start?
They are a fairly new team, and unsponsored, with relatively little AR experience and almost none as a team in an expedition race of this length. Natalia Zimina has gone the full expedition distance before, at the Patagonia Expedition Race 5 years ago and has a rogaining background. (She was part of the mixed World Champion pair in 2015.) More recently she has competed in the AR World Series race in China, and the Nordic Adventure Race, and has competed with her team mates occasionally over the past few years. That is when time allows as she is a paediatric doctor and a 39 year old mother of two (not 19 as it says on the race website).
Her team mates are Semyon Yakimov, who is the main team navigator and Ruslan Dyuldin is described as the team pack-horse, who helps navigate the biking stages and is an expert on bike repair and maintenance. With three strong navigators it’s no wonder that has been a strength of the team so far in this race.
Their 4th team member Yevgeny Pochaev raced the 24 hour Nordic Adventure race with Zimina but his main strength is endurance biking, and I do mean endurance. He’s completed the 3000 mile Race Across America, and ridden from Alaska to Argentina, as well as non-stop 24 hour races.
At present the team are making good progress though the final trek/canyon/ropes stage of the race, and have passed Team Omjakon to take the lead.
The stage they are on is described as the “defining leg of Expedition Africa which will see teams following the riverbed of the Koebee river canyon. At the end of this canyon teams will cross the Koebee mountains through Rooibos plantations to reach the escarpment were a breath-taking 100 meter abseil awaits them.”
Gruelling canyon stages are a feature of Expedition Africa and are often the crux of the race, and it looks like this will be the case once again in the Koebee canyon. The 6 lead teams are now in the canyon and in AR terms are still ‘fairly close’ together, but the top two S. African teams are making up ground on the leading 3 teams quickly, putting their previous EA ‘kloofing’ experience to good use. There is still a lot of canyon to complete as well.
Can Team Blizzard keep the lead they’ve established through to the end of the race? One thing they have in their favour is the final stage is on bikes so their bike maintenance, navigation and endurance riding skills should come into their own.
You can watch the dots/flags to see if this dark horse team can pull off a remarkable win at www.expafrica.live
(Many thanks to Anna Burlinova for her information on the team.)
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