Bull of Africa
A race is just a race
Lisa de Speville / 01.07.2005
�I've been following the Bull of Africa on SleepMonsters and I have enjoyed reading the race reports - all except the last one entitled: "Special forces are the ‘ladies’ of AR,� claims Sofrana Unilines’ captain". That is a really mean thing for the team captain to say about a teammate and not a nice thing to see in print. I have captained teams in Canada's Raid the North Extreme twice and yes, on one occasion we were forced to withdraw after several days for reasons similar to those cited by the captain of Sofrana Unilines. I would never, however, make statements like he did in public and certainly not if I thought they were going to be printed. As a team we must all take responsibility for our success or failure. As team captains we must bear the responsibility for the success or failure of the whole team. We should not be pointing fingers at other people.�
Thank you for your email and your comments, which echo every reservation I had about running the article. This piece, by Mark Gray, was written with the permission of David Bejilali. Gray had overheard Bejilali and went over to ask whether he would be mind being interviewed. He did not hesitate.
I too have raced and captained teams in which dynamics were sub-optimal. As far as adventure racing goes, this is par for the course and refining your team and selecting ‘perfect’ team-mates takes time. In the past few years I’ve learned how to better select suitable team-mates, handle situations, minimise conflict, communicate better and resolve issues.
Gray’s article is not as much about finger pointing as it is about the reality of having 4-individuals competing in a team – together – over multiple days. Bejilali seems to be a hard taskmaster who expects his team-mates to mirror his physical and mental strengths. This is fair. But, judging from the Bejilali’s ‘regular training regime’, which includes monthly 3-day sessions in which they don’t sleep, don’t eat and just keep going, it may be difficult for them to find similar, hardened team-mates. I certainly wouldn’t crack the nod.
This in itself draws our attention to the importance of racing with people who have the same goals, values, aspirations and levels of commitment. That isn’t to say either that Michel Dubois wasn’t committed. His niggling hip flared up on the first trekking section, he pushed through the following tough mountain biking section and still wanted to continue… for his team.
People fall ill, people get injured and this is just something that every team and every participant will have to deal with at some stage. Although often desperately disappointing, a race is just a race.
Lisa de Speville
* Photo by Craig Dutton
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