Raid Ukatak
Poles Withdraw …. and then there were Four
Rob / 23.01.2003
One of the main challengers to runaway leaders ‘High Coast 600’, Polish team Hellmann/Salomon Adventure, have pulled out of the race. After their radio call yesterday they made it to PC10, but by that time Pawel Mosckowicz was suffering too badly from the cold to continue. With Team Passion officially disqualified, though they are continuing, that leaves just 4 teams on the long course and out ahead of 3 Canadian teams are the Swedes. They have already done two more, very tough, checkpoints than any other team, for which they’ll get time bonuses, yet were at CP15 2 hours before any of the chasing teams reached CP13. It’s an impressive performance and if they don’t succumb to the cold or suffer an injury they look uncatchable.
They are now in the same area as the 3 teams who were put on a much shorter course. It’s a cross-country ski/snowshoe stage which will lead them to a second rappel at Lac Cardinal, and later in day 5 they’ll also have a Tyrolean traverse to do, if that too is not affected by the weather. From the forecast it seems the wind has dropped a bit, but even the locals are still describing conditions as ‘brutal’.
For the teams on the long course chasing High Coast 600 there is still a very long way to go, and there’s been no news of the course closure time being extended. Right at the back are ‘Olympia Cycle’ who got to CP10, but had missed CP9 and had to go back for it! They will find it hard to recover from that and make up ground in time before the course closes.
However, for the slower teams the organisers do have another short course option built in as checkpoints 15/16/17 are on a loop which could be taken out.
[The High Coast 600 race website has recently gone live if you want to check it out.]See All Event Posts
