The AR World Championships - Costa Rica
From 5th to 13th Top Positions at Full Course
Alex Carrijo / 10.12.2013
The fifth Team to arrive to complete the top 5 positions at ARWC was South Africa's Merrell Adventure Addicts.
At around 08:20 at TA11 yesterday morning (the start of the 156km bike), Quasar Lontra, Merrell and BMS all arrived close together. All three got to see each other at transition. Both Brazilians looked more eager to chase third place than Merrell, which was the last to leave TA, moving slowly.
These teams were rested and were progressing well ahead of the times the leaders Thule and Columbia had already set for this stage. While Tecnu and Adidas were having a fierce fight against each other most of the time, BMS was way behind them but opening a good lead over Quasar Lontra and Merrell. Strangely, Lontra had slowed the pace just before CP47 on the borderline with Nicaragua when Merrell finally got them.
Approaching CP 48 BMS lost about 5hrs locating a log bridge where the control box was. They were overtaken by Merrell and managed to finish around 5hrs behind them on a beautiful blue sky day, which means a lot of heat even by 7h30 in the morning!
Even though they dropped to 6th, the best Brazilian Team at ARWC 2013 were really happy just to finish what seemed to be unfinishable to them sometimes. The last two days of the race they had a teammate suffering from sickness and bad water poisoning.
Last night was not a lucky one for the Brazilians as Quasar Lontra had a similar problem to Adidas Terrex and had to get a bike from local villagers. That slowed them a lot and they also had problems finding CP48, so they decided to stop to sleep and get the check point in daylight. They have just arrived in good spirits holding 7th position.
Yet to come among the top 10 finishes are Costa Rica's best team Aerodiva which is just about to reach the rafting, their specialty. Before the start line the bets for best local team were not placed on them at all. They have trained a lot at kayaking, inserted one team member into his very first expedition race and benefited from the synergy of racing together for long years.
Team Bones and Mountain Hardwear are 9th and 10th on the first third of the long MTB leg. Looking at official rankings apparently only 13 teams are fully ranked. The others are Bivouac Colts, East Wind and local Toyota Racing Team. There are more teams listed on the full course though.
Toyota set a goal to be amongst the 15 first teams and they are going to accomplish it. There will be one more long day for them to get to the finish line and they should arrive on Wednesday.
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