Raid Gauloises
Apprehension and Relief
Tim Lloyd - Manager Team Saab Salomon / 10.06.2003
For team Saab Salomon it has been just about the start I would have expected. The high altitude mountain trek will have been a drain on their un-acclimatised lungs, it is apparent already that the teams living and training in Alpine environments are much better prepared for these conditions. But the Brits came into the checkpoint at the end of the first trek in good shape, it would seem that at this stage Jim’s ankle is bearing up well and not giving him too much grief. They made a slick turn around onto the next section – over 60k’s in inflatable canoes, this will be another gruelling stage, but also a welcome rest for some tired legs.
The French Teams VSD Eider, Spie and Ertips will undoubtedly extend a lead over the rest of the field on the canoe stage as they all have international paddlers on their teams and are consistently quick on the water, but they will have to work hard to hold on to the race lead on the following bike and hiking stages, with several strong dry land teams breathing down their necks and waiting for their moment to pounce.
It is all still very close at the front, with quite a few teams within an hour of each other. The surprise teams up front to me are the Spanish team Extrem Buff and Human Link from Sweden. The Spaniards are very experienced; they won the 2001 X-Adventure World Cup, but have never achieved significant success on the longer races. The Swedes have a very strong unit for 2003 – they were third a few weeks ago in the 2003 Raid Series opener in Scotland, but their Raid team must be selected from the 2002 squad which was never among the front runners. It’s no surprise that the Swiss are showing their strength from the start, they have been training hard for the raid and will be totally focused.
As for the rest of the field, significant absentees from the front are Nokia and Seagate. Nokia have fallen foul to injury very early in the race, it is not clear at this point how serious the injury is, but I’m sure that the demanding terrain of Kyrgyzstan will soon reveal whether they can recover or not. As for Seagate, it would seem that their front man Nathan Fa’avae was suffering the delights of ‘Bishkek Belly’ in the very early stages of the race which had left them mid table; this condition had also struck Lapin Kulta who were also struggling with sickness in their team too.
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