The Bull of Africa
Five more teams cross the finish line
René Taljaard; Photo: Wouter Kingma / 14.08.2008
South African team McCain Adventure Addicts came in second at 16:15 yesterday afternoon, and Swedish team Bjurfors Adventure Racing took third place at 19:06 last night.
Australia’s Blackheart/Adventure Capital was the fourth team to arrive at 6:09 this morning. French team Lafuma-Sport2000 came in fifth at 11:17AM, followed by South African team McCain Adventure Fanatics at 11:56 today.
A total of 12 teams are currently “unranked�, which means that one or more of their team members have dropped out and the rest of them are proceeding – either as a group of three, or with another unranked team that they have merged with. Six teams have withdrawn from the race entirely – this means that 18 teams are currently carving a path for themselves towards the finish line. The majority of these teams are busy cycling the 93km from the Mpotshane Lodge to Mazepa Bay, while quite a few others are catching up on some sleep at the Seagulls Hotel.
At Balugha Inn headquarters this morning: It started out as a bit of “innocent� eavesdropping and gradually took the form of a proper conversation – most likely at the point when this reporter’s unabashed staring and what must have been obvious curiosity could no longer be avoided. USN’s Martin Dreyer, USN’s John Collins and uge.cyanosis’s Eugene Botha were discussing strategy and sharing their Bull of Africa race experiences.
This is a big deal for two reasons: Firstly, all three of these athletes are adventure racing legends in their own right, and secondly, these two teams were neck on neck, vying for first place for the largest part of the course. That was until fate made a U-turn just outside of Mazepa Bay, where Eugene started having serious breathing problems and uge.cyanosis had no choice but to withdraw from the race.
He explained that he has never had breathing problems before, and that this was a delayed effect of the bronchitis he developed during that first night when they were hiking up the Amathole Mountains.
“It was fine, my chest was burning but I could still race so we pushed on because we were sitting in second place for most of the race – we were desperate to win and you don’t give up because your lungs are burning a little,� he said, “When we got to Mazepa Bay we decided to do a bit of a run to try and catch up with USN and that was when I had the bronchial spasm.�
When discussing race strategy, Eugene highlighted some of the benefits of being in second place: “At one checkpoint we had to hike up this mountain and we were battling to find the right path, so we kept looking around for confirmation and every now and then we would see a Salomon shoeprint and know that team USN had been through there. Also, on one of the steep climbing legs we actually saw some blood spatters on the ground and realised that it must have been someone from team USN who had a bloody nose or something.
It’s those little clues that give you confirmation that you’re on the right path and it makes you go a little bit faster,� he explained, “There’s nothing that slows you down more than doubt.�
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