The Raid World Championship 2005
The Final Steps
Rob Howard / 20.09.2005
It was one of the toughest courses ever and these last two teams had survived and endured the whole race from the back, racing to achieve their ambition to finish and beating numerous cut-off points along the way. At the second canoeing stage they were minutes from disqualification, rushing to get their canoes in the water and avoid disqualification. They endured some appalling weather, seemingly endless climbing, injury, illness and exhaustion, but kept going for over 176 hours to finish.
The course was a true Alpine journey, with teams starting from Annecy in the French Alps, passing through Courmayeur in Italy, into Switzerland on the Tour de Mont Blanc trail, and then back into France to arrive at Chamonix. They’d raced around most of the mighty Mont Blanc Massif at this point, and now moved on into the Swiss Alps to arrive at the finish in Gstaad, a finish that must have seemed so distant at times.
Yet for the 26 finishers it was always their goal and no matter how much climbing remained between them and the finish line, they kept going.
For 26 of the 33 starters to finish was testament to the quality of the competition, a fact which makes the achievement of the new Raid World Champions, Les Arcs Quechua even more outstanding. (And for those who wonder about the name, Les Arcs is a French ski resort, which the course passed close to, and Quechua is the mountain/sports brand owned and marketed by Decathlon.)
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