Wulong Mountain Quest
Mistakes Cost Seconds in the Prologue at Wulong
Team Thule Adventure / 04.09.2013
Due to heavy rain the opening ceremony was shortened to an minimum and only a few people made speeches about the race. (Talk about silver linings!)
It was the same prologue course as the last two years, starting with a gruelling 2 km uphill running. Everyone set off at a furious pace but we managed to get a good position in the front of the pack with approximately 8-9 other teams.
After this short run we switched to a sedan-chair, where 3 team members have to carry the other one. We made the choice to carry Mimi with Jacky in the front and Martin with Marcel at the back. This turned out to be a mistake, it was heavier at the front of the chair and due to this miscalculation we lost a couple of positions and set out in 6th or 7th on the biathlon. (That is a run/Ride where the team has only 2 bikes and swap over runners and riders to move as quickly as possible.)
On the following biathlon we managed to gain the speed we needed to get a good place at the front and passed teams up to 2nd place with only 30 seconds behind Team Toread, which has won the Wulong Mountain Quest the last two years.
We chased and held the distance to the teams behind us, but in the last descent we missed a turn at high speed and had to turn back. Team Tineli from NZ caught us up due to this mistake.
On the finishing run towards the finish line in central Fairytown it became a long sprint between us and Team Tinelli where we lead until 200 meters from the finish but were caught at the last. We came in on a 3rd place today and looking forward to stage 1 tomorrow.
The current leaderboard is as follows:
1: Team Toread
2. +54sek Team Tinelli
3. +10 sek: Thule Adventure Team
4: + 43sek Team Silva Haglöfs
A Sylvain Boisset movie from the prologue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpBH19j8DMc
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