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Interview with Elina Ussher

Anne-Marie Dunhill / 14.12.2010

In team Thule Richard Ussher, as well as being captain, is the one who usually responds to media so it was a pleasant surprise to be able to interview Elina Ussher this morning on Al-Mirfa beach.

I wanted to get the inside take from her point of view as to what it was like racing with this super fast team that has dominated all editions of this race. This Nordic beauty was surprisingly candid and funny as she discussed her feelings after yesterdays the desert trek.

Elina bluntly explained that she races to be able to shop and at the lowest point in the trek she thought about the leather jacket that she has her eyes on.

All joking aside, at one point she was worried about what would have happened if she had not been able to carry on out there as they guys wouldn’t have been able to carry her out. She also admitted that she had found this years section much more difficult then in previous years, so much so that she told Richard that if it was like this next year she wouldn’t want to come back. She went on to explain that this is her job and yesterday it felt like a very very long nine to five.

She said that she loves racing with her team as they’re so strong it’s like racing with Terminator; they just soldier on no matter what and sometimes she feels like a little kid amongst their talent.

When asked which format of racing she preferred, expedition or stage, she emphatically replied stage racing. Expedition racing was her thing when she was 25 but now at 35 she feels the effects of sleep deprivation. Future plans she said that she and Richard would like to purchase a house in France after they vacationed in Nice this past August and she enjoyed a particularly enjoyable shopping raid in nearby Monaco.

With the long sea kayak section cancelled and plan B of a much shorter loop starting tomorrow morning after the racers make the two hour transfer from Al-Mirfa,barring a last minute catastrophe it looks like the Ussher supremacy will remain unbroken. Listening to Elina today, the biggest threat to their reign is the Rub Al-Khali,with its barren expanses and the temptation to say no thank you, I’ve had enough of that agony.

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