ARWC 2018 - Raid in France

All To Play For On Day 3

Press Release / 10.11.2018

Losing mere minutes may have devastating consequences tomorrow.

After an epic first leg of 106kms of mountain hiking and nearly 8000m of elevation gain, top teams are preparing for a sprint tomorrow. They must beat a second dark zone if they hope to remain in the top bunch and in the running for a podium.

In something unusual for Adventure Racing, currently, all of the top teams have been caught by a dark zone and are going to get a good nights sleep at TA1. This dark zone is in place as it is too dangerous to continue onto the next leg in the dark. To start of the leg requires a committing 50m abseil down the waterfall Bassin des Aigrettes and into the canyon of the Bras des Liannes which they follow to the river du Mât. Teams then paddle down the river du Mât to reach the ocean, hike up the bed of the river des Roches and the pack raft down the river des Marsouins.

The concern for teams is that all rivers are dark zones and the entire leg is estimated to take 14hrs and 15min. Teams are able to race on the rivers between 0515 and 1900. This only gives them 13hrs and 45min to finish this section. The race is going to be on. Anyone who doesn’t make it through, will need to wait out the dark hours on the edge of the river des Marsouins, meaning they will be close to 11 hours behind anyone who makes it through.

It is going to be a very exciting day for dot watching and we will do our best to bring it to live. Tune intolive.arworldseires.com to watch the live tracking and https://www.facebook.com/arworldseries for our live feeds and video. It is going to be exciting to watch…..