Costa Rica: The Coastal Challenge 2009
Ticos dominate the 2009 race, with top finishes in Expedition male, female and team categories
Jacqueline Windh / 10.02.2009
American Dave James, who finished second last year without little apparent effort, took his training more seriously this year and was clearly here looking for a win. Dave also ran a pretty much perfect race - but coming into the final 23 km stage, Javier still had an approximately 50 minute lead over Dave. Scott Jurek, probably the most accomplished and awarded runner of the field, had been finishing in the top 5 each stage, but Scott was definitely focussing on his upcoming summer race season and not pushing for the win here.
Competition was much hotter in the women’s category. Costa Rican Ligia Madrigal had won most of the previous women’s stages, but American Jaclyn Greenhill had been pushing hard and was only 13 minutes behind Ligia in cumulative time.
Other than the inital 4 km river section and waterfall crossing, the whole route was very runnable. Although Javier’s overall victory was all but certain, Leonardo and Javier were both going for the stage win. Leonardo won the stage in 2:43:25, with Javier sprinting in only 20 seconds behind him, both of them a good 7 minutes ahead of Canadian woman Doone Watson who took third - an impressive effort by Doone, and first time in this race that a woman has placed in the top three overall.
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