Reunion d’Aventures
The Race to the Sea
David Ogden / 19.05.2005
The sun greeted the competitors on day 5 and the action was also hotting up. The leaders of the Extreme and Adventure categories both had good leads but were chased hard. The women of Wilsa Sport Helly Hansen managed to regain second position by a couple of minutes, but they had to trek hard as they had a 25 minute penalty to serve at the penultimate CP on the mountain bike leg. The Russian women trailed the field in the morning having taken a longer route on their way to Grande Ecrite on the edge of the Cirque de Salazie.The leaders of Adventure class arrived at the Grand Ravine just before noon and another 20 minutes later the overall leaders ‘Sport 2000’ arrived. Both classifications faced a decent of a 250 metre high cliff. A quarter of the way down they stopped at the entrance to a larva tube and then followed a passageway for some 470 metres, passing through a squeeze to reach another entrance in the cliff. The teams then returned to the original entrance and continued their decent of the cliff.
The teams in Discovery class did not abseil down the cliff but followed a footpath which led them to the bottom of the cliff and then all teams followed the ravine down a further abseil to the sea.
The teams made slow progress on this stage and only three teams passed the control point before the 16;30 cut-off. Wilsa Soirt Helly Hansen will spend the night camped at the top of the final abseil along with ‘Centre des Carmes’. The leaders arrived at the sea and camped on the beach.
Tomorrow should see the final sprint to the finish and barring accidents the leaders appear to be safe. There is an interesting contest for 2nd place between ‘Centre des Carmes’ and Wilsa Sport Helly Hansen, who have been trading places throughout the course. ‘Run Evasion’ which is unclassified in the Discovery class may be the first to reach the finish in St Leu.See All Event Posts
