Raid Gauloises
The Paddle to the Finish
Chris/Raid Gauloises / 03.05.2002
As the leading teams begin to think about their strategy for the final run into the finish, they take to the spectacular scenic waters of the Halong Bay in sea kayaks. This segment, over 100 kms long, should prove to be decisive, given the relatively minuscule distances separating the top three teams. It promises to be an exciting and passionate paddle in surroundings worthy of paradise…
So far the teams have been on their feet to the point of exhaustion but now it’s time to bring the arms into the foray. Over the next few hours and all the way to the finish at Cat Ba island, the upper body will hold sway. Today (03/05) at around 18h00, VSD-Eider, making an unexpected comeback, were the first team to launch their sea-kayaks and start the final section of this 11th Raid Gauloises.
After 2 CPs were taken out of the course at the last moment through bad weather conditions, this 100km section of the course should still hold some surprises in store with VSD-Eider, Nokia, Ertips, and Parallax so tightly grouped together. Coming out of CP36 (AP3) and embarking on a 50km biking section followed by a short but steep 75km trek should have spread the field but at the start of the sea-kayaking section (CP43) the first two teams VSD-Eider and Nokia Adventure were still only 10 minutes apart. Now they will need to rely on their GPS navigation skills as they slalom their way through the 3000 islands of the Halong Bay, classed as a world heritage site by UNESCO. Tidal changes will also have an influence along with the frequent passage of large ships plying a course across the busy Gulf of Tonkin. It will be a furious struggle as all the leading teams have at least one world-class paddler in their midst: Yves Masson and Gilles Lelievre in VSD-Eider, Gilles Zok in Ertips and Rebecca Rusch and Novak Thompson in Parallax. Only team Nokia Adventure appears, at first sight, to be lacking in this department but time and the result will tell.
It’s not just at the head of the race that the tension can be keenly felt, the group of teams constituting the middle of the pack also locked in an intense confrontation and nerves are beginning to fray. The German 4 Salomon team, currently ranked 32, had words over the loss of a water purifier’s cap at CP22. The French of Strive, a team assembled for the first time on this Raid Gauloises, is also on the verge of imploding as captain Jean-Louis Vareilles today criticised his navigator, Christophe Derouche for competing with him for the role of captain and forcing the team along at an exaggerated pace. All this is in stark contrast to the prevailing atmosphere in the team Fous de Bassin who are never short of song when they arrive at each assistance point. At AP1 it was a bawdy folk song called “La Chanson de Bebert� and yesterday (AP2) they gave a resounding rendition of “Happy Birthday� for their assistant’s 40th birthday. EMA Brazil are another happy band of fellows, especially the “fellowettes�, delighted by the performance of the two male members of the team. This is the first race of it’s kind for the organisers of Brazil’s most celebrated adventure race and they appear to be hanging in very well.
Today a number of teams went underground, not just to escape the sweltering heat but to complete a novel addition to the Raid Gauloises’ smorgasbord of adventure racing disciplines. On the menu was a brief incursion into spelunking and the world of stalagmites and cavernous dark spaces. “It’s the size of a cathedral!� gasped Anna McCormack, “no matter how tired you are, you can’t help but marvel at the spectacle of it�.
After both Ertips and Parallax had their sampan take on water and sink on the first section out of AP3, forcing them to return and start again, Alain Gaimard decided to err on the side of prudence and replace the rest of these traditional craft with the more reliable inflatable canoes, already used on other parts of the course
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