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Safe Returns and Race Stories

Jan Smolik / 28.08.2007

The first teams arrived to the finish on Friday morning, but for the rest of the pack the race continued for much longer. And while the first four could conclude the race at a slow pace, as there were big differences between the teams, others had to race right up to the end.

At 18:49 a message from CP40 (the last before finish) beeped on the cell phone of the Race Director: “Hi-Tec was here at 18:38. Pavel Paloncy looks really bad send somebody to the border if he has problems swimming across the lake. 18:43 – Euroteam, they look good.� At 19:18 another message arrived: “Alpinautic were here, they are motivated and they will race.� It was a sprint to the finish!

The fastest of the leaders needed 75 minutes to get from CP40 back home, but Euroteam only needed only 50 mintues. For this they took fifth place. Hi-Tec arrived sixth five minutes later. However they had a 15 minutes penalty for not having a lighter during a mandatory gear check, so they set a clock and when it ticked down from 15 to zero they uncorked their bottle of Champagne. Alpinautic arrived shortly afterwards and took seventh place. The rest of teams were arriving gradually during the whole night and the last to return was Rekre at 9:09 am.

Altogether 13 teams from 18 starters completed the full course. Two others took a short course and one team completed as a pair with two members withdrawing from injury. Only two teams withdraw completely and a twisted finger was the most serious injury!

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