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Steep hills loom everywhere

Jan Smolík / 25.06.2011

As you will be able to read all the detailed race info from the official report I will only offer some race impressions. The second biking stage was fast and pretty straightforward. CPs were located in villages, crossroads, chapels. What I envied the most is that lampions were located in the very visible places in villages and they did not get stolen. I unintentionally followed couple of teams in a car as I decided for the same road. It was not navigationally difficult and with curved roads I did not overtake many teams.

Teams were moving fast, too fast for the organizers. The first team arrived to the transition area 30 minutes after midnight while next stage opened at 5 a.m. That practically canceled the first day of racing and at 5 a.m. race started anew with no differences between top teams. Some of them were really upset and uttered words that should not be published. On the other hand when I talked to the teams during Saturday, they mostly concentrated on the changed situation and tried to beat their opponents.

Whole Saturday was dedicated to trekking. A long stage took more than twelve hours to all the teams. The hills on the course are not all that high but they are steep. When you are at the road at their foot they sort of loom above you. They are really steep. Unfortunately for teams, CPs were not located only on the top of the ridge but some of them almost at the foot. As following stage was considered by many teams too long to be finished on time, it left many options which CPs to miss. Especially the first caving section opened huge options. You had to do a long descent to it and it was tempting not to ascend back to the next CP but continue on the road along the river. But as one team, which does not want to be named, confirmed to me, it was not faster than climbing back and taking rest of the CPs. They did not gain any time, but they missed three CPs.

On the other hand, while hills were demanding, there were some beautiful views. In some cases teams spent a long time in the forest on tarmac roads. That was a huge complaint among some racers that their feet really suffered on tarmac. But when the view opened it was really worth it. I can confirm that sight from Remnšnik was really worth the effort.

During the second part of the trek there were two additional distractions: abseil from a rock and caving. Both were actually located at the same hill. It was a really steep one; climbing it sometimes almost changed to scrambling. Abseil itself was not that demanding but returning back to the top took more than a minute race marshals promised.

Caving section was really wet as there was stream flowing through the cave. It took about ten minutes to get through the cave. It was not a straight cave, it turned at several points and some places were really narrow. Swedish team enjoyed it so much there went twice. At the first attempt they did not locate the checkpoint. But you should see their happy faces when they finally succeeded. I guess that was worth it.

Volunteers that guarded the cave more than made up for all the suffering. They were offering tea and coffee to everyone, and to the lucky first even pancakes. They were very talkative and really supported all the teams. Volunteers here are generally very supportive, there was even warm pasta waiting for teams at the TA.

The extra bonus for team effort should be credited to the all girls team that races here. They arrived to the TA with not much time to spare, but they were all running attached to a single cord. A nice show of a team spirit.

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