The 4th Reunion d\'Aventures Event

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Crashes at the Start

15.05.2007

Photo copyright E. Batard

Sunday 13th May 2007: This morning at 7.03am, Gérard FUSIL signalled the start of the 4th Réunion d’Aventures. For the eighty one athletes concerned, the inaugural stage consisted first of a roller blading course over about ten kilometres on a forest road – suitably tortuous and hilly – leading them to the Bebour pass.

From the start, there was a succession of spectacular falls, often painful and with serious consequences.

In fact, three competitors, Jérôme Fraty (Euskadi Cap\'Aventure), Slim Merzoughi (Latitude 55) and Dominique Lepage (Passions Sans Frontiers) were forced to abandon the race due to injury.

The rest of the course consisted of a mountain bike stage between the Plaine des Cafres and the Plaine des Sables, right next to the volcano of Piton de la Fournaise. Next came that an aquarando (river scramble) which brought them southwards to the canyons and waterfalls on the river Langevin.

The final section was on mountain bikes, over a highly selective course, interspersed with unstable scree, forcing the competitors to carry their bikes, which is always difficult.

This evening at 6pm, after eleven hours of a harassing race, the 27 teams were quite significantly spread out over distance and time.

In the lead, with a twenty-minute advantage are Les Arcs Quechua -1 who camped on the path leading up to the Piton de la Fournaise. Les Arc Quechua -2 and Aigle Sybelles ESF made their camp a little further down. Team Deniv\' were slightly behind and completed the top four.

However, at the rear, ten teams spent the night on the western banks of the river Langevin. The rest, or half of the competitors, are spread out over the terrain, according to their postion at 6pm when it is mandatory to stop for the night.

Three retirements forced a reorganisation of teams missing one of their members. A member of team 13 has joined the two members left in team 12, and his companion provides assistance to team 23. The six competitors concerned are continuing the race “unclassified�.

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