Portugal XPD Race
A Long Paddle to the Finish
Rob Howard / 10.10.2004
The 3rd and final stage of the race restarted with a night Trikke. These unique scooters have been a success on the race and the sight of a stream of headlights weaving left, right, left along the road was a memorable one. Teams have had mixed feelings about how hard they are, some racers have taken to them easily, others found them hard, and there is no doubt the upper body gets more of a workout compared to skates. They are almost as quick on the descents too.
As the sun rose on a fine day, the teams moved through a foot orienteering stage, which led them into deep ravines and tunnels, then took to the water on the Guadiana river. It was to be a long paddle, from some over 12 hours, as they fought the tide on the way to the coast, and the town of Castro Marim. Then came a final 1.5km run up into the medieval castle, the last of many castles and ancient monuments used as checkpoints on the course.
The first teams began coming in around midday, having chosen to miss optional checkpoints and the last arrived just before the course closed at 5pm. The final two teams over the line, in a race where time was secondary to collecting checkpoints, were the winners of the main classes. EcoAtitude won the main ERL class and another Portuguese team, Aqua Fitness, won the UTL Trophy for all-male teams.
The rankings in the race were based firstly on the number of mandatory CP’s, then the number of optional CP’s, and unusually teams who pulled out were still included in the overall ranking. So Megamedia, who didn’t race stage one at all due to the illness of one team member, still managed to come 3rd, and the Danish team Fusion.dk placed second in the UTL class, even after the horrific flying fox accident that befell Peter Nejsig.
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