Explore Sweden Monster - Atlantic to Baltic
Sweco Stand up to the Storm
Malin Andersson / 15.07.2010
The bad weather came back Monday night/Tuseday morning. During the second canoe section and Statkraft, Sweco Karlstad, FJS and Karsu.fi had a really hard time moving forward. The waves were too high for the teams to continue paddling and they had to get to land.Sweco Karlstad, however, stood up to the waves and mastered the situation. Earlier in the race they had already dealt with stormy weather, and the team were probably strengthen by that. After they had taken their two hours of penalty from the boat ride the day before, they were still in a comfortable second place ahead of the chasing teams.
When the sea had calmed down, the rest of the teams could continue. Their stop now resulted in an even tighter race between the places 3 and 7.
After the stormy paddling, the teams began the last leg of trekking – the longest foot stage of the whole race. In spite of an injured team member team Silva Gerber managed to continue with relatively good speed and they still look strong. The teams trekked along “Kungsleden� trail and then entered the beautiful landscape of Rapadalen, which is a 35 kilometre long valley surrounded by mighty mountains. After this trekking stage the teams will switch to bikes and go a further 192 kilometres to the Baltic coast.
Behind Silva Gerber and Sweco, FJS are struggling. Then come four teams that all have been able to sleep during their penalty time at GZ4. It remains to be seen if their fresh legs can help them catch up on the tired leading teams.
After serving their penalty time at GZ4 both Karsu.fi from Finland and Kompar Xtreame from the Czech Republic left at the same time, but they chose different routes. Kompar chose to go into the water right next to the gear zone. Karsu, on the other hand, went west from the GZ along the road approximately 1000 meters and then went down to the water. Most probably choosing a spot were the crossing of the lake would the shortest.
Earlier in the race, Karsu felt they were too slow, but after serving their penalty they were in good spirits. “Today is our day!�, said team captain Olli-Pekka Holttinen. “Vamos! Vamos!�,said Laura Salminen eager to continue the race.
At the back of the filed the American team Zero to Hero still struggles hard but they are determined to continue the race and make it all the way to the finish.See All Event Posts
