Raid Gauloises
News From CP7... Some Serious Weather
Pino/Raid Gauloises / 28.04.2002
Giuseppe Minetti is our iron-man in the field. Armed with a satellite up-link, a palmtop and tenacious journalistic acumen, he is following the race as closely as any non super-fit athlete can be expected to do. Moving between check points, pushing his own personal sporting limits to the max to stay alongside the racers and capture that all important interview.
Ever seen the sky open and all the water held by the clouds fall to earth in one go? Well that\'s what happened here last night and it gave the competitors their first taste of serious Vietnamese weather. Totally unpredictable, very, very wet and to top it all off, exceptionally hot and humid.
Team Parallax, led by the veteran AR racer, Tony Molina, had a rather interesting 24 hours since their checking out of CP1 (starting line). I walked with them the final 5km into CP6, where they would do an unassisted transition to their mountain bikes. I asked Tony to describe their night hike without using the word \'wet\'. It took him some time to find his words but he did say that the lightning had helped by illuminating the route for them even though the wind was pulling trees from their roots.
Flash flooding also caused a problem and their feet were feeling the effects of being wet and hot. They had no injuries to report and they did look healthy, if somewhat dishevelled. Transition was as slick as you like and they checked out of CP6 quick time. Only 128km to the CP7. Team VSD-EIDER were hot on their heels and for my money, they looked fresher and had a distinctive skip in their step. 55 minutes separated the 2 teams but with 6-11 days to go, this Raid Gauloises is still in pre-med.
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