From the Alps to the Riviera

Rob Howard & Anne-Marie Dunhill / 22.09.2012

The 2012 Adventure Race World Championships is coming to a close as teams come down from the Maritime Alps to the beaches and resorts of the Riviera. 

Some are still struggling to complete the full course, moving slowly now but determined to keep moving to the finish, others have missed time cut-offs and been moved around the course to AT16.  From there they will make the short trek to the sea and paddle around Cap Martin to the finish line.  One way or another as many teams as possible will cross the line today.

There are now just 19 teams on the full course, the last of them being Mountain Hardwear of the UK, who just made a time cut-off yesterday, but only a few minutes.  They will be aiming to reach the finish line by the course closure time of 14.00.

The final part of the race is the end of a journey from the Alps to the sea, and towards the end of the final cycling stage as they descended on their mountain bikes teams saw the sea, but as Daniel Hanssen of FJS put it, “It seemed so close ... but someone had put a lot of mountains between us and the water!”

The last MTB stage was another tough one, with a lot of difficult navigation and bike pushing, sticking to the race philosophy of keeping teams off of the main trails and out in the wilderness as much as possible.  When we saw Team Switzerland at one of the final checkpoints on the ride they just said, “It’s not really a ride at all!”  Their moral seemed low, and it was even lower 90 minutes later when they arrived back at the same checkpoint, having been lost and circled back on themselves.  The team have had a difficult race after Bernard Hug became sick from drinking river water.

The checkpoint they visited twice was at the ancient fortress town of Gorbio, one of many picturesque villages perched in the high valleys above the coastline, but by this stage teams were almost beyond enjoying the scenery and the fragrant forests of Provence – they just wanted to get to the finish.

As they finished the ride they could look down into Monaco bay and see dozens of super yachts moored up (it’s the Monaco Boat Show) and this was their destination. Once they had dropped their bikes for the last time there was a short trek down to the beach on the edge of the bay, where they prepared to paddle around the coast to the finish.

There could hardly have been a greater contrast between the plastic sit-on-top kayaks and multi-million pound super yachts.  The Dutch team BART Superano called up to some passengers on the railing of one of the yachts, and they dashed inside to get them some Coke which they threw over the side for the team.  

Luckily the weather has been calm for the sea paddle (Thule had the worst conditions when the wind whipped up a difficult swell), which takes the teams past the huge hotels and private houses that look out over the Mediterranean and into the small harbour at Roquebrune Cap Martin – the destination for all the teams for the closing of the race today. 

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