The Adventure Racing European Championships 2013
Russian and Polish Teams Lead AREC
Darek / 25.01.2013
Competitors of Adventure Racing European Championships survived the first night with all the teams finishing the biking stage departures to transition area B. Here they left bicycles and went for 30 km of trekking
It's getting more and more interesting as the title of the adventure racing European Champions plays out, and don't forget teams are racing for honour of being part of AR World Championships in Costa Rica – entry fee will reduced to zero. After the second day of pushing hard the situation is still open. In the lead there are two teams; the Russians of Garmin/Arena/RedFox and the Polish Salewa Trail Team (well known from taking places in the top ten in ARWC – 5th in 2010 and 9th last year). (The Russians were penalized 60 minutes because of illegal support.)
After almost a whole day trekking teams finished it with spectacular steep ascent to the renaissance castle in Szymbark. It was really exhausting for all the racers. A few teams decided not to do the rope activities. The second special task was memory orienteering in the ethno museum in Szymbark. The aim was to remember details from the photos and then find objects and collect CP's.
The weather has also been changing and at last the sun has appeared ... thought the temperature will drop at night. Forecasts says it will drop to -15 degrees C and during the evening bikes freezing were not easy to manage ...
The Salewa Trail Team came back at 6:02 from the first overnight skiing stage. (They started XC skis at 20:19.) It was very cold during the night. There were no tracks, so it was back country skiing on an icy surface with a lot of falls. The leasders slept for two hours and at 6:22 the Russians arrived. They will continue pushing hard, because they slept before the skis stage.
SleepMonsters
