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The Four Unknowns

20.05.2006

Stage 4 – Day 27; On Friday afternoon, in a deep gorge outside the Bolivian town of Tupiza, four of the 18 competitors in the Land Rover G4 Challenge sealed their places in Saturday’s Challenge Final – which will be the culmination of a month of extreme 4x4 driving and adventure sports in Southeast Asia and South America. Trouble is, until Saturday, none of them will know if they have been successful or not.

None of the competitors will know who has made the cut off for the four places in a head-to-head grand finale until just minutes before the start of the Challenge Final on Saturday morning. All 18 competitors will be asked to line up as if they are all in the final – before the overall scores to date are called out in reverse order – leaving the best four standing and ready to fight for the keys to a brand new Range Rover.

“The idea is to keep the suspense boiling to the last possible moment,� said Event Director Niki Davies.

Friday’s Stage Final, the last event of the Challenge’s last stage, through southern Bolivia from Sucre to Tarija, was the competitors’ only chance this week to score individually and put some distance between them and their partners of the last six days.

At least one and maybe two of the top four places were still up for grabs at the start of the Stage Final – a punishing elimination event where the competitors had to race on a mountain bike and on foot though an oven-hot valley of 200 metre high sandstone walls.

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