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Mountain X Race Day 5, A Fearful Place
posted Monday, July 28, 2008 by Yak @ 8:51 AM - 0 comments

The day devoted to white-water on the River Arve and River Giffre reserved quite a few surprises for the teams. Between the Arve's tranquil waves this morning and the frothing vortex of the Giffre, SAAB SALOMON (GBR) lost the lead to QUECHUA COMPAGNIE DES ALPES 1
(FRA), while SPORT VIBRAM 2000 LAFUMA (FRA), a co-ed team, surprised everyone with the strongest paddling of the day.

It was a refreshing day for the athletes involved in this second edition of the MXR. After the heat of the first day running through the heart of the Savoie Mont Blanc region, the chill of swiftly flowing alpine rivers brought a welcome respite to the proceedings. Three whitewater sections were programmed today with the first starting at 9h00 and comprising 14.5km down the relatively smooth, if somewhat paddle intensive, River Arve from Le Fayet to Magland. At the end, there was just enough time to disembark, deflate the canoes and pack them, with the teams, into the assistance trucks before heading off to Sixt-Fer-a-Cheval to ride the Giffre for 5km as it plummets through the Tines Gorge. And this is where the fun started. Athletes were thrown from the boat, rolled around in the spume and paddles were broken or stuck between the rocks. The rapids at the entrance of the Tines Gorges took no prisoners, even among the most experienced teams.

Disembarking at Samoens, the teams were plucked from the waters and taken back to Sixt-Fer-a-Cheval for a second go at the torrent, this time continuing their journey to Taninges. On the way, they had to carry the boat through a number of shallows and paddle hard along some
slow, flat stretches. "My knees are toast after kneeling in this boat for such a long time," Nico Lebrun (NIKE) said grimacing. "But everything went well. We flipped on a first pass through the rapid but then we got the hang of it," the inexperienced Frenchman explained. The big winners over the water today were SPORT VIBRAM 2000 LAFUMA (FRA), winners of 3 sections, then SYBELLES-MERRELL (FRA) and CATEYE OUTDOOR EXPERIENCE (FRA). Two of these teams are co-ed and engaged in a merciless dual for supremacy in their category.

The race for overall first place is also coming to fever pitch. Thanks to finishing in 4th place on the day, QUECHUA COMPAGNIE DES ALPES 1 (FRA) did just enough to snatch the Yellow Jersey from SAAB SALOMON (GBR). "This was all about damage limitation for us because none of us are paddlers," admitted captain Ben Bardsley, "we thought we would lose the lead yesterday and didn't but today we are sure we will."

So tomorrow, in Morzine, is sure to be very exciting as a number of teams compete to edge out the competition and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. In the overall ranking and the sub-categories, nothing is decided and only a supreme effort, the trademarks of SAAB SALOMON and QUECHUA, over the 46km adventure-running section and the 3,000m of elevation gain, will pay off.

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