Cambodia: The Ancient Khmer Path
STAGE 6: 25 of 29 runners finish the entire 235 km route - all racers now hanging out at Sokhaly Angkor Resort
(submitted) / 23.11.2012
Today the magic and final stage started at 6am to finish inside the world heritage site Angkor Wat. Runners had to run 16.6 km, passing by the major temple sites of ancient Angkor, including Ta Prohm and Bayon, then entering the east gate of Angkor Thom, passing the terrace of elephants. From here, they ran around Bayon Temple, leaving Angkor Thom at the South Gate before entering the spectacular Angkor Wat temple.
All runners finished the emotional final meters, some of them with tears in their eyes.
Salvador Calvo Redondo of Spain finished firmly in front of the pack, winning four of the five race stages (times for one of the six stages were neutralized) for a total time of 18:01:45. His countryman Manuel Pastor finished second, in 19:23:05. Third male and third overall was Paul Trebilcock of Canada, in 21:05:02.
The first female in was Ireland’s Aisling Coppinger in 24:00:21. to take ninth place overall. Second was France’s Valerie Levai in 24:35:51, and third was Julia Romanova of Holland in 26:41:09.
Twenty five of the twenty nine runners finished the whole course. The longest stage (62 km on Day 3) proved hard on many of the runners, though, with two racers not finishing, and Britain’s Sophie Power, who had been leading the women’s field up until then, suffering some circulation problems and dropping out for the final stages.
After 235 km over six hard days, the runners are now relaxing at the Sokhaly Angkor Resort before the award ceremony with a local cultural show and BBQ dinner starts in 2 hours.</p>
SleepMonsters
