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Limestone and fog

Filomena Gomes/Louize Hill/Togumi / 07.12.2007

As the second day of the Estoril Portugal XPD Race dawned many of the teams were passing through the Transition Zone (ZT)3, already half way through stage two of the race. Two sections of stage two ended at ZT3, as it formed a figure of eight. The only obligatory checkpoint on section three was at ZT3, meaning teams could skip the whole section if the chose. One team that that decided to do this was SMS Sweden as one of their team members was having trouble eating throughout the night. They decided they had a better chance of recovering on the bikes, so as to be able to race better later. Several teams, including Sphera-Bombers-Lleida-Nats, only visited a few checkpoints.

The trekking loop out of ZT3 had climbing, rappel and downhill trikke activities at the checkpoints. The Russian girls of team Arena impressed everyone present with their skills as they flew down the rappel cords, barely giving the photographers gathered at the bottom of the cliff time to catch them.

The differences in the classification of different teams continued to grow during the day as some teams skipped checkpoints. Some teams had stopped during the night to sleep, both TEVA-La Penilla and Arena had stopped for about an hour and a half, while Alpine Pro/Nutrend didn't sleep at all. According to the journalist who is accompanying them, they usually don't stop at all to sleep when they are racing. Some teams managed their sleep badly and were caught out, needing to rest mid stage. Adventureteam Bornholm tried sleeping in a bus stop, but the cold soon got them moving along again.

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