Touquet Raid Pas de Calais
The Touquet Raid Pas de Calais
Anne-Marie Dunhill / 09.04.2011
Le Touquet is an elegant seaside resort on the Atlantic coast with not a single billboard in sight. Racers were able to discover parts of the town during an orienteering section in the city before the race took them along the coast, across an active cement mine and through the dunes. The sheer numbers made for a fascinating experience on Sunday during the urban orienteering; sitting at an intersection and watching racers stream like ants in all directions.
There was also an international element to the race with racers from Belgium, England, Holland and Switzerland. Chatting after the race with a Dutch team, All Terrain 2, Remy Van der Vles said that they’d found the race challenging because back home they’re used to complicated orienteering and races that require strategy and at this race they’d needed sheer force and little navigation. When asked about the translation of the roadbook into English he said that he appreciated the effort but when words were too difficult they were left in French, causing many a chuckle as they tried to guess at the meaning.
Starting Saturday evening at 18:00 on the beach with a short sprint before heading into the dunes on mountain bikes, followed by 7 kms of rollerblading, mtb which took them through the Holcim cement mine and its moon like landscape, orienteering and a final mountain bike section ending at midnight. On the race route a seal on the beach of Canche bay delighted racers.
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