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Slowly Down the River

Rob / 11.11.2009

During Tuesday afternoon the leading teams were making their way to the River Zezere, which was to be the first paddling section of the race, although it was not a white water section as planned, with the water levels being too low.

From Assistance Point two there was a 1 hour downhill mountain bike ride to the town of Barco where TA7 was set up in a tiny concrete walled football stadium. The team kit was left earlier by the support crews and was spread out on the field and there was a table and barbeque set up near the centre spot with a selection of local speciality dishes. These included cured hams and local soft cheeses, bread and cooked meats and sausages. Some teams were keen to grab a bite and others keener to move quickly through transition. The Canadians of Team Kinetic punched in and rode straight to the food table, making their meat sandwiches while still in the saddle!

The first team to arrive there were Abolue Raid Halti Watt of France at 12.38 in the afternoon and before the section closing time at 15.30 a total of 17 teams set off down the river in the provided sit-on-top kayaks. The lead pack included some well placed team like Ertips of France and Opvanet/Tilak/Merida of the Czech Republic, who are near the front of the race and have (I think) only missed 3 checkpoints, making no attempt to go for any bonuses. The captain of Opvanet, Marek Navratil was quite content with his team's position, saying, "we are keeping to our strategy and aim to do the paddling tomorrow in the daylight, so if we can we will be happy. There is still a long way to go."

Some of the lead teams had also already stopped to sleep at AP2 earlier in the day, but the same could not be said for those pushing to get all the checkpoints. Of these Nike and Orionhealth were only just inside the cut off to allow them to paddle, arriving at 15.53 and 15.00, with Orion quickest through transition leaving with a 20 minute lead. Having failed to make the cut off both Team Ecuador and NYARA decided to stop for a sleep in the stadium, but later teams who had to make the alternate trekking route were keen to get going and pushed on.

Helly Hansen Prunesco were very quick through transition, and they have so far collected every checkpoint on the course, and with Orion and Nike both missing one bonus are the leading team on a checkpoint count at this stage. They missed the closing time for the paddle however, and had to take the alternate trek but were not too concerned. "We misjudged completely," said Warren Bates, "but the trek is not so long and while we'd rather not do it, we don't think we will lose much and we are still credited with the checkpoint, so won't miss any."

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