Raid in France - The Adventure Race World Championships 2012
Day 4; The wounded and the weary
Rob Howard and Anne-Marie Dunhill / 18.09.2012
French adventure racing legend Marc Balaskovic was transported by race staff in the early morning hours to the organization relay in the quaint town of Jausiers. On an earlier section he had a nasty run-in with a poisonous plant. His left hand brushed against it and it left several splinters in his thumb. Thinking nothing of it at the time he continued racing. On one of the earlier long trekking sections he stopped to extract the splinters and all hell broke loose.
He suffered convulsions as the poison diffused in his body and his thumb swelled to four times the normal size. Although race doctors continued to monitor him, he was forced to withdraw as the pain, allergic reaction and the inability to bend his thumb meant that the technical mountain biking stage was rendered impossible.
Speaking to him afterwards he said that it was only the second time he’d ever had to withdraw from a race; the first time being when he had septicemia in Costa Rica. He went on to speak with pride of his seventeen year old son who is an up and coming adventure racer himself. Another French racer, Stephane Huot of team #39 was also transported to this relay point suffering from severe back pains.
On the rafting section Mariann Sulg of team #57, Twister Adventure, dislocated her shoulder when she was ejected from the raft and one of her teammates pulled her out of the water. Her shoulder was put back into it’s joint, a painful experience if ever there was one, but she was forced to withdraw from the race because of the state of her feet; she stated that the shoulder pain was nothing in comparison to the agony her feet were causing her.
On the long trek today two members of the Danish French team #33, DareDevils Adventure Racing, withdrew from the race coming into TA9. Benoit Pavee needed medical attention for his feet and his teammate Adrien Seguret said that he had decided not to continue the race as his two Danish teammates were moving slowly and he didn’t want to continue the rest of the race at their speed.
They were both transported by a media team down to the transition in which teams left the trek to continue on a short but intense mountain bike stage. After the mountain bike stage, teams will be taking their last four hours of mandatory rest at TA 10. These four hours are non-negotiable.
The upcoming canyoning and ropes sections promise to be spectacular and hopefully with a bit of rest the teams will be able to fully appreciate the stunning scenery we are currently in the middle of, in the Alps de Provence.
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