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Downhill to the Finish

Rob Howard - SleepMonsters.com / 11.09.2004

The last and decisive mountain biking stage began from Kransbach, where stage 4 had finished. After a swift 100m run across the castle lawns to get their maps the teams settled down to solve puzzles which would give them access to 3 mountain bike runs, graded Black (hardest/longest), Red (medium) and Green (easiest). All 3 lead down to the finish at the Olympic Stadium in Garmisch Partenkirchen, but if teams had the strength they could do more than one run, or parts of them.

Armed with their answers (or guesses) everyone raced off to an IP to hand them in and collect their passes. It was 10kms down the Ferchenb valley to the IP point, and a beautiful ride, but not all the teams did it. Quite a few didn’t read their instructions or see the IP point on the edge of the map and went straight to the start of the runs, collecting an hour penalty and losing any bonuses they might collect on the way down.

Airbus arrived at the IP with one answer missing, but wanted passes to all 3 runs. As it was a letter of the alphabet they decided to keep guessing until they got it right ... and the answer was B! They were on their way in seconds, headed for the black run, which was twice as long as the others, but had many more bonus points. The majority of teams took Green, the shortest and easiest way to the impressive stadium finish.

The stadium was built for the 1936 winter Olympics, which was the reason the two towns of Garmisch and Partenkirchen were joined, and houses the town\'s famous ski jumps, used in the 4 hills tournament. The finish was set in the middle of the stadium with teams riding in beneath the 3 fearsome ski jumps, and the first back were Czech team Anect s.a. but they’d failed to visit the IP, as had all the early finishers.

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