Raid Ukatak

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Withdrawals and Breakdowns at the Start

Amelie Plante / 19.01.2003

Sunday, January 19th.

Team 12, Atmosphère/Mountain Hard Wear, are down to three members after Mélanie Ruelland was forced to withdraw on the first stage. Before the team reached CP1 she experienced a dramatic drop in blood pressure and was unable to continue. The unexpected setback didn\'t deter her teammates however and they decided to continue unranked.

The other story of today\'s start was a 50-minute delay suffered by the Polish team. Pawel Moszkowicz of team 1, Hellmann/Salomon Adventure, discovered his wheel rim was broken on the ride to the start line. The team considered themselves lucky that the break was discovered before they began, permitting the option of support. The delay to replace the wheel was recovered by mid-afternoon as they passed the back of the pack in the hills surrounding Saint-Hilarion. “Since we’re going to loose an hour,\" said Pawel Dybek, \"we forget strategy, we just have to push like hell.� They were able to catch up and at CP2, they were ranked 7th.

Later in the day there was another withdrawal. At 16:06, when team 18, L’Aventurier were at CP2, the captain Julie Cardinal was forced to withdraw due to an injury to her knee. Her three teammates decided to continue the race unranked.

Swedes Coast into the Lead

At 18:39, the leaders, Swedish Team High Coast 600, arrived at CP3. This was the end of the first mountain biking stage and the transition to trekking on ski\'s and snowshoes. However, before teams could continue they had a mandatory 4 hour stop which is a feature of this race. Teams have to demonstate that they are capable of camping out in the cold conditions and that all their equipment is in good order.

It\'s no surprise that the Swedes are leading the way. They are a very experienced team lead by Michael Nordstrom who has captained Team Reebok for the past 5 years and is a Race Director himself. (He has a SleepMonsters profile page if you want to take a look.) One of his team mates, Per Vestling, was on the team which lead much of last year\'s Adrenalin Rush.

Team 2, Le Genévrier/Baie-St-Paul, a team from Quebec, got to CP3 in second place at 19:24 closely followed by team 14, Passion, an international team from Canada/United States/Reunion Island. The only all-female team, ChiroTag.com, is still in the race but was in the last position at CP 2.
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