Two races and a bit (2 pm to Nightfall)

Rob / 14.04.2002

At dusk dense, snow laden clouds still hung over the mountains, it was still raining and 5 of the 10 teams who started the day were unranked, but all are still on the course. It’s been a tough day.

The front 6 are lead by clear leaders Goretex Golite who completed the long ‘night’ trekking stage at 20.30 and moved onto the long night Mtb ride northwards into Abernethy Forest. They are still being chased hard by the now unranked Parrott Lythgoe, and a further 4 teams are still chasing the podium positions, so the race at the front the race has 6 teams in it.

Bridgedale Ireland remain third but Total Adventure and Total Avengers are chasing and are reported by all the marshals as looking strong and have been racing side by side at times. Cannonball are a little way behind and are the only team to have no penalties to serve out at the first major transition area which all the lead teams will hit tonight. As a result of being held up by some missing paddles earlier in the day they also have a 38 minute credit. So they have at least a 1 hour 38 minute advantage to make up tonight!

At the last checkpoint the chasing 4 teams all passed through (No. 14) the departure times were:

Bridgedale Ireland 17.42
• Total Adventure 18.16
• Total Avengers 18.17
• Cannonball 19.45

All these teams managed to complete the extreme mtb loop in the middle of the day, finish the paddling before nightfall and get through the final mystery discipline of the day – which turned out to be clay pigeon shooting. Everyone had 2 shots at a clay, and it was a new experience for them all. Keith Byrne of Total Adventure turned out to be a crack shot – hitting with both shots. It was all very professionally put on by Sid Collier at Rothiemurchus Estate.

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