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A Brief Introduction to a Long and Complex Course

Rob Howard / 08.11.2009

It was a tight fit to get everyone into the room for tonight's race briefing room at the Eden Hotel but with all the floor space used there was just about room. Race Director Alexandre Guedes da Silva took teams through the route stage by stage, explaining each section and giving out some advice along the way. Then the floor was opened to questions, of which there were many, and the teams moved off to collect the maps ... all 79 of them!

The route description introduced teams to the race route book which is set out with a lot of information, including opening and closing times for the stages, map scale of each section, notes on any bonus CP's, mandatory equipment needed for each section, and proposed activities (which in fact meant mandatory activities).

Section one prompted a lot of muttered conversation in the audience as it is a multi-sport, score orienteering activity. It includes activities all around town, such as rappelling, snorkelling, swimming, climbing, bike dirt jumping, some traditional sports, archery and cross bow shooting. There are points for each activity and teams must collect 100 points to get Bonus A, the first checkpoint of the race.

Da Silva described it as a "challenge by choice section intended to show the race to the town and give you a lot of fun". There were questions about queues and the answer was, "Its first come first served", with no credits for waiting." What no one realised until later was that he meant teams had to score exactly 100 points or fail to get the bonus, and this will have to be clarified in the morning.

He added, "We planned on having a prologue, but then thought why should it just be a prologue, so we have made it a stage of the race." After the multi-sport fun around town, there are 4 more sections in the first stage at Cascais. These are inline/Trikke, coastal trekking, mountain biking with a zip line and downhill trikke riding, and then a final trek downhill through a river canyon back into the finish at Cascais.

The stage will just be for time advantage, so it will only be significant to act as a tie break for teams who have the same number of CP's. Once this is completed teams then drive 3 hours to the town of Lousa in central Portugal and sleep the night in the local sports hall before restarting the race at 08.00 on Monday, after which the course will be continuous.

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