Fulda Challenge

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Dutch Courage

Nick Lees / 06.02.2004

They don\'t have mountains to climb up and ski down in the Netherlands, but a couple of Dutch athletes did what they do best Thursday.
Corinne Van Dijkhizen and Timo De Boer, both 32, scored a double victory in the canyon traverse in the Fulda Extreme Mountgain Challenge.

\"We compete in our country\'s popular survival runs,\" said De Boer. \"Along the way you take part in various competitions, including rope crossings.\"

An astonished crowd watched as the duo hung upside down on a rope stretched 20 metres above frozen rapids and used their legs as well as their arms to propel themselves 60 metres to the far side. \"It\'s a technique the Dutch have developed for such an event in survival runs,\" said Van Dijkhizen. \"It seems to work well.\"

Other competitors agreed. They all lay on the rope, with one leg dangling down for balance, and used shoulder muscles to pull themselves across the canyon. Canada\'s Greg McHale finished second in the canyon traverse, 17 seconds behind De Boer. British Marine fitness instructor Gary Bullen was third, 29 seconds off the pace.

The win moved the Netherlands into third place in the challenge, with 89 points after eight events. Canada leads with 104 points and Austria is second with 94. It was a sad night for Germany, who before the canyon crossing, were lying in second place, eight points behind Canada, but slipped back to 5th.

Earlier in the day things had been going well when they scored a double victory as Sandra Janisch and Alexander Lang won the men and women\'s events in a 15-kilometre freestyle cross-country ski race across a frozen, snow-blown lake. \"I\'m used to skiing on groomed slopes,\" said Janisch, 34, a translator for a bank in Frankfurt who finished third overall in the nine-team competition.
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