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Day 4 - A Long Day on the River

31.07.2008

Yesterday one of the leading teams TEAM SPORT 2000 LAFUMA VIBRAM abandoned the Raid CaneO Nature ,at CP 8,due to a team member suffering severe dehydration which resulted in provided a three hour buffer for leading team Wilsa Sport Helly Hansen.

At this stage the race order for the section in Extreme was WILSA WCUP CHTI Raid, Helly Hansen UK, Wilsa Sport Helly Hansen, Columbia Lozère Sport Nature and The Fous de Bassin TDR BX.
The Raider classification overall was being lead by OAHU clearly ahead of chasing teams Les Mureaux –Défis Sports Aventures and Flying Avent’Hure Palfinger.

The Adventure class Valmo Raid Pink team - Décathlon Sequedin who were one hour ahead of Lys Aventure with Intersport Liège a further hour behind.

A storm during the night forced the closure of the Absiel at “the end of the World “, resulting in an extension of time of some two hours for closing of the CP’s , it also made the skating sections a bit more difficult
The first of the adventure teams arrived at the abseil ahead of the overall leaders as they followed a shorter route, however Wilsa Sport Helly Hansen was once again in the lead at this CP.

The ropes section proved to be a bottle neck and Helly Hansen UK,, took advantage of the situation to get an hours sleep with the clock stopped, whilst in a queue.

Thursday proved to be a day of waiting with slow progress kayaking on the river Saone as the river was flowing slowly teams expected to take between two to four hours longer than planned, with mountain biking and inline skating before finishing the stage in the evening. A change was made to the course, partly due to high winds expected nad the slow progress. The final mountain bike leg of the stage was cancelled shortening the stage by 90K for all classes and Raider and Adventure classes where collected from the river and taken to the end of the kayak stage, in order to re-start with the rest of the days legs.

One of the International teams Nat’s-Colla del Matí – Bombers de Lleida from Spain competing as a Raider had a problem interpreting the rules and arrived at CP 12 missing out the Roller Blading section in order to keep within the cutoff time and are now continuing unclassified.

Two more teams from Raider and Adventure class are also continuing unclassified ither because of lost team member or because they have skipped a stage to keep up with the race.

Summary of teams 8 Extreme
9 Raiders
5 Adventure
9 out of Class
1 Abandoned

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