7 Cerros Medellin Adventure Race
They’re off!
Jacqueline Windh / 14.10.2006
31 AR teams lined up, alongside a field of several hundred individual inline-skating competitors, at 7:30 this morning, for the start of 7 Cerros MedellÃn, the urban adventure race. This three-day AR event is taking place concurrent with three days of individual competition in hill running, mountain biking, inline skating, and orienteering involving over one thousand competitors.Multi- time world inline champion Andrés Botero happens to be a local boy, so of course he had a firm lead over the rest of the pack within seconds of the start. Already within the first few hundred metres skaters had started to spread out, and it was pretty easy to see who knew how to skate and who didn't. Teams HALTI (SWE), FINLAND and PATINETOS (a local team whose name means something like "the skater guys") skated smoothly, leading the way for other teams who came with decreasing confidence, the very last ones toddling along and stumbling.
FINLAND arrived first to the transition to mountain bike, with PATINETOS right behind them, and followed by INTER SPORT (FRA) and then HALTI. I caught up with the teams as they left the city on their bikes, and rolled up to the base of the steep and muddy hill called Tres Cruces. They followed the same route as the individual mountain bike competitors, who were just starting their race here. The route was tough, forcing racers to walk or carry their bikes up slippery slopes of good ol' tropical red mud. After seeing the leading teams work their way up the first part of the hill, we suddenly saw SOLE (USA) coming DOWN, heading into the CP from the wrong direction – to find the CP and so they could head back up the hill with everyone else. However, they made up some of that lost time on the downhill, one of the few teams to not only ride (rather that walk) down most of the steep muddy sections, but to do so with truly impressive control.
HALTI was surprisingly far back in the pack – their skating poles still had not arrived, which slowed them on the uphills, and then they had a serious problem with a rear wheel on one of the bikes. Lucky for them the rest of the day would be on foot. Weather is mixed sun and cloud, but most definitely quite waarm and muggy.
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