Raid Gauloises
Calm after the Storm … The Teams Take a Rest
Christopher Archer / 29.04.2002
The first teams to check in at Assistance Point 1 in Thac MO, arrived at 05h30 local time. After three-hours compulsory rest, they set off again in the torrid heat that didn’t take long to produce its first victims.
After about 300 kilometres of trekking, MTB and canoeing, the top eight teams to arrive at the first of the three Assistance Points, located in the Thac Mo National Park (CP14), had all done so by about 17h00 today. Delivering them from the ordeal of the first two days where a difficult course was made worse by harsh weather conditions: beginning with torrential rain and ending with suffocating heat (30°C in the shade).
The first to take advantage of the compulsory three-hour rest period was VSD-Eider who arrived at 05h30 in the morning. Traces of the effort they had made during the final canoe section were clearly visible on the faces of Yves Masson and Gilles Lelièvre. Being the team specialists for this particular section, they took only two, 25 minute naps, while their team mates recuperated. Next came Ertips and Parallax, the former race leaders who had pushed the limit on their capacity to continue without sleeping. Making a come-back, Parallax were hot on the heels of Ertips after the canoeing section.
Each team had its own way of passing the three-hour rest period. Some tumbled into sleep after copious quantities of pasta and fresh fruit while others were happy with a lie down and someone to massage their aching limbs. The Finns of both Nokia and Lapin Kulta immediately stripped off and plunged into the crystal waters of the river running through the middle of the camp. Yves Masson even found the energy to put in an appeal for clemency from the jury who had imposed a penalty on his team.
All day long, the leading teams came through while the teams lower down in the ranking all cleared CP6 by the end of the day. The “surprise� of the first two days is the amateur team Les Fous de Bassin, ranked at 8th shoulder to shoulder with the “pro� teams, and quite comfortable with it too, as their rendition of a well-known French folk song attests.
All this brought a splash of colour to an already scorching day (33°C in the shade) already proving arduous for a number of teams. Ertips, who left CP14 at 09h30 were signalled as being in trouble and one of the team was obliged to return to CP16 for medical attention. Dehydration was the culprit but, after a brief stop over, he was able to set off again. The same affliction struck team Parallax, who left in third position.
After losing one team member to heat-stroke about half way along the first 120km trekking section, Oak Ridge from South Africa and Power Bar from Holland both withdrew. Atropos also are out of the running after Deb McInally abandoned with hepatitis symptoms at CP6.
Copyright www.raidgauloises.com
SleepMonsters
