Raid Caneo Nature
A Hard Days Night
David Ogden - International Adventurers / 30.07.2008
It was a hard day’s night for all the teams as they struggled to portage some forty locks, as dawn broke the first team WILSA SPORT HELLY HANSEN transferred to Mountain bikes for the final leg of the stage, some 4 hours later than expected. Behind them teams with sea kayaks were struggling, team ABSOLUE RAID Décathlon St Orens abandoned the leg halfway through the kayak section. The Raid CaneO Nature organization was forced to make contingency plans for teams in classification Raider and Adventure to ensure all teams were ready to start Stage 3 later in the day.
The order of arrival in Extreme class was WILSA SPORT HELLY HANSEN, around an hour ahead of TEAM SPORT 2000 LAFUMA VIBRAM who had had a good day, then team WILSA WCUP CHTI Raid, showing on the leader board for the first time arrived some 15 minutes later. HELLY HANSEN UK arrived in 5th place around 3 hours behind the leaders and Nicola MacLeod said it was the hardest kayak leg she had ever done, the team had stopped for a ten minute cap nap, and headed strait to camp to eat and sleep before the 1330 start of the next leg.
The first two days of the Raid have been a little confusing with problems of horse riding and the lack of time to finish stage 2 which effected some 15 teams, details of the Raider and Adventure classifications are not yet available.
Having taken into account all adjustments to date the overall race is being lead by WILSA SPORT HELLY HANSEN who have a lead of around a one and one half hours, over TEAM SPORT 2000 LAFUMA VIBRAM. Second place is secured by over a two hour gap to a group of three teams chasing teams. WILSA WCUP CHTI Raid, COLUMBIA Lozère Sport Nature and HELLY HANSEN UK who are fighting it out for 3rd place and are at present separated by a few minutes. (all above subject to confirmation)
The first withdrawal of the race came from team DENY in the Raider classification and they are now unclassified MARINE NATIONALE - LATTITUDE 55 also lost a team member and two members are continuing unclassified., VESALIS, FUN EVENTS and VALMO RAID PINK TEAM - DÉCATHLON SEQUEDIN are also out of classification.
Stage 3 had an interesting start, as the kayak leg started with the passage through a tunnel, so that whichever team gets tot the entrance first would have a great advantage as it was very hard to overtake, this maybe just what current leaders need to consolidate their position.
WILSA SPORT HELLY HANSEN took their customary lead from the restart, but hit the side of the canal entering the tunnel and had to stop at the exit which allowed WILSA WCUP CHTI Raid to go into the lead for the first time, HELLY HANSEN UK started carefully and lead the second group into the mouth of the tunnel.
Later this evening there is mountain biking, abseiling, and inline skating which will be reported tomorrow.
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