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Day Three

Anne-Marie Dunhill / 12.11.2009

With the MTB section teams have cycled all night. Freezing winds and thick fog did not help their progression. Mike Kloser from the Nike team said he thought that the weather conditions were going to slow down the race and Alex Guedes da Silva (Race Director) actually confirmed that the leading teams were two hours behind the planned times.

The first cut-off tomorrow will split the race into three. Three quarter of the teams that did not arrive on time will be shunted towards two other sections. The trek section that took place this morning was obviously designed by a good navigator with the CPs 18a, 18b, 19a and 19b being located on rough ground with low, dense vegetation.

The Estonian Elo Saue from the Portuguese team Globaz spoke to the American team Nike and attempted to explain the format to them. After Nike had left, she asked some journalists whether Nike had tried to get to CPs 18 and 19 and when this was confirmed she shook her head saying, "they are stupid. I told them that they should not try to get them, they are taking too much risk with the first cut-off"

And in fact, later on Nike had started discussing what road to take, which is something they rarely do. It seems obvious that it is time to pass maps around as the Nike navigator made the team clamber up an overgrown hillside, increasing the journey by 100 metres more than was necessary. Mike Kloster said "Damn, you made us lose 100 superfluous metres!" That such an elite team starts making wrong decisions says a lot about the difficulty of this championship.

French teams are still in the race and Denis Merlin from Planet Tonique said that they were all very down last night, except for the woman Sandrine Beranger. Sullen faces on the Outdoor Experiences team and Vincent Faillard's wave while towing Markus in the descent showed they are not feeling great.

Sofermi Raid Nature 46's strategic decisions of not taking bonuses and missing some CPs started to pay off as they are still fresh and Frederic said they had slept on top of the mountain last night, huddled together.

Five teams have given up such as Mickael Lindnord's team (from Sweden); Team Explore. One of their guys had violent vomiting episodes. Mickael said "I am so frustrated that I don't know where to stand!" Teams number 6,17, 34 and 35 also had to withdraw from the race.

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