X-adventure Raid Series
Les Arcs-Quechua Again
Raid Organisation / 09.09.2003
Race conditions were near perfect, when the 45 teams set out on Saturday morning at 06h00 from the picturesque medieval enclave of Ainsa for a steady climb on their bikes towards the small village of El Plano. By sunrise, the first teams had reached the end of the 20km MTB section at the foot of the Pena Montanesa range, with early pace setters Elix-Courchevel (Fr) ahead of Equilibre Attitude (Fr) and World Cup leaders Les Arcs-Quechua (Fr) grouped with Saab Salomon (GB) not far behind. A compact cluster of 13 teams rapidly mustered to attack the first trek of the weekend. Elix-Courchevel was one of the rare leading teams to include its female member, Christelle Robert, in the mix for this exacting section.
At this point, overall series leaders, Les Arcs Quechua, chose to accelerate and pull away from Saab Salomon, who had been neck and neck wity them since the start of the race. The day continued with a seemingly endless Mtb descent involving some portage and river crossings. Ertips-Salomon (Fr), Salomon Suisse (Ch), Equilibre Attitude (Fr), Les Arcs-Quechua (Fr) and Elix-Courchevel (Fr), still holding onto the race leadership, all arrived in Campo, at the end of the third section, with a time spread of only one minute. The following canoeing leg on Rio Esera was reduced by half from, 18km to 8km, due to low water levels, but it still turned out to be a fast and technical section with Elix-Courchevel (Fr) holding firmly onto the lead and a refreshed team Salomon Suisse hot on their heels.
The longest MTB section of the stage took the teams into the remote parts of the Sierra de Campanué: a 660m ascent followed by a demanding 510m downhill dash over rough ground. Local heroes Salomon Spain demonstrated their excellent biking skills by overtaking the leading teams and the crack Spanish unit moved up the field to start section 6 (trek) in 4th position overall. Leading team Elix-Courchevel (Fr) made it through the section safely, but Salomon Suisse were unlucky. While riding side by side with Saab Salomon (Gb) chasing Elix and the Spaniards, one of their derailleurs broke and the Swiss team lost about 26 minutes.
Though Les Arcs-Quechua (Fr) continued to lose time on Elix-Courchevel, they moved up into second place in the overall race ranking and put their foot down on the two last treks of the day to take the lead as night fell on Catalonia after a fierce day of competition. Prior to that, the team hadn’t pulled off any first places on the first 5 sections of the competition and one could be forgiven for wondering whether something either mechanical or physical was amiss. But that would be discounting their unparalleled understanding of the more arcane aspects of adventure racing and their matchless capacity to accelerate at the right moment and the right place.
SleepMonsters
