The Freedom Challenge
HARSH WEATHER WRECKS HAVOC WITH RIDERS
Press Release / 27.06.2011
Everest conquerer Alex Harris has now emerged as the clear race leader and looks set to arrive at the finish on Tuesday morning, well within the existing race record of 13 days and 17 hours. However, there was a time when Harris’s progress looked to have slowed. On Thursday night he descended down the Osseberg track into the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area. Ahead of him lay 12 crossings of the swollen Groot Rivier near the settlement of Cambria. It took Harris 6 hours to cover 10 kilometers in darkness. Walls of thorny acacias, washed downstream in the recent rains and clogged up the approaches to each of the crossings. His comment afterwards “Bavianskloof flooded and trashed! Madness...I gazed into Mordor! Took a beating but mind strong.� After 25 hours of riding and battling he was able to get two hours of sleep before continuing up the Baviaanskloof.
In the early evening of Friday Harris finally caught up to Ugene Nel and Garth Flanders who both left Pietermaritzburg some days before him and have led the race field across the Stormberg and Great Karoo. Working together the three battled strong westerly winds as they headed back into the Moordenaarskaroo and on through the towns of Willowmore and Prince Albert. On Sunday morning Flanders fell off the group, leaving them to climb the 800 metres of the handbuilt Swartberg Pass, and then ride on through the Gamkaskloof Nature Reserve and into the Hell.
On Sunday afternoon, following in the footsteps of Denys Reitz and generations of people who have travelled on foot into the Gamkaskloof, Harris and Nel climbed the historic Ladder and continued through to Rouxpos at the foot of the Klein Swartberg where they are expected to sleep for the last time. Monday will see Harris, possibly still accompanied by Nel, making a final push for the finish at Diemersfontein. He is expected early on Tuesday morning.
After battling the the Cambria crossings late into the night the next group of riders coming through, Jacques Swart, Coen de Bruin and Brett Rightford finally opt to bed down in the bush of the wilderness area. What would anyway have been a disturbed nights sleep was made doubly so when a leopard passed within metres of where they were lying.
Warned about the treacherous state of the river, particularly at night, second placed rider Glenn Harrison who is riding a single speed, opted to wait for first light before successfully, tackling the crossings, only complaining afterwards of flesh wounds and wet pants. However, the delay resulted in his almost being caught by chasing riders Andrew Barnes and Duzi Champion, Martin Dreyer who completed the crossings a few hours behind him. All three are more than a day behind Harris in lapsed time but the next few days will determining whether Harrison is able to again break away to consolidate the second place and whether any of these three are also able to finish within the existing race record.
Tatum Prins of Team Merrell Adventure Addicts, who is endeavouring to become the first woman to complete the Freedom Challenge Extreme Triathlon, spent the last three days battling through a snow fall in the Stormberg and the wet and muddy conditions that have followed. Conditions will need to improve and she will need to improve her pace if she is to break the 19 day 2007 women’s ride record Hannele Steyn-Kotze.
Elsewhere in the field, there have been high incidences of withdrawals - by the end of the weekend, almost a third of the field. Two time finisher, Estelle Labuschagne withdrew in the Stormberg with a suspected leg fracture, Avril Metlerkamp who had battled on with a cracked rib, withdrew at the town of Hofmeyr with a torn thigh muscle. But apart from Prins, another two women, Joan Louwrens and Di Thomas, remain in the race. Other participants are soldiering on with injuries, Dave Cochrane with a shoulder that he dislocated descending off Ntsikeni early in the race, Mark Loftus who tore ligaments when he took a fall in the Maluti Drakensberg.
The small window of good weather over the next few days will hopefully enable those riding near the back of the field to move beyond the high lying Stormberg and for Harris to continue his assault on the race record.
The progress of participants in the 2011 Freedom Challenge along the race trail can be tracked live on the event website www.freedomchallenge.org.za
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