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Posted by Grant on 16. April 2009 07:33
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This stage had a great mix of strategy and raw speed. But before I get too far, for live tracking, photos, etc be sure to visit www.UntamedAdventure.com/Switzerland. I've also posted a few tidbits to Twitter from out on the course.
Raw speed was demonstrated by Chris Schneider (Switzerland) who took off from the very beginning determined to open a dominating lead in the race. Milns/Geiser, a team of two from the UK and Switzerland, but both living near to the race course, felt their local knowledge might be enough to match Chris's speed. It's hard to do justice to how the showdown played out, but if you look at the GPS race tracks online you see that the two front runners took dramatically different routes to the finish. Chris took some wrong turns and thought he had lost the Stage midway through the day when he arrived at CP 4 -- at the top of the dramatic Gummenalp ridge -- and admitted to race staff that he had made some bad navigation decisions. He thought Milns/Geiser had gotten away from him. In reality, the duo was visiting checkpoints in the opposite direction from Chris and so it became confusing to know who was in first and who was in second.
The route chosen by Milns/Geiser was bold, but in the end proved a bit too bold as they found connecting to Checkpoint 6 from Checkpoint 3 to be very slow going across steep ridges. This proved the deciding part of the Stage, as Chris eventually reached the finish line 47 minutes ahead of the duo.
There was also a lot of drama on the rest of the course. Untamed Adventure Virginia had a 15 minute hold on 3rd place halfway through the course. ARMD and Richmond ASR were only a few minutes apart, racing in 4th and 5th. A bit further back was Wijnand Jager.
A checkpoint later, however, and Richmond ASR had jumped into 3rd place. Untamed Adventure and ARMD both made the same mistake while winding their way down the long descent to the finish -- the footing was unstable and they were so focussed on watching their steps that they didn't realize they had veered off course and had followed the wrong trail. By the time they realized their mistake, Richmond ASR had snuck past them to eek out the 3rd place finish.
Just a few fun anecdotes from today:
- This stage had some steep, I mean some really steep, downhill portions. So steep, in fact, that the Untamed Adventure team opted to slide down on their butts for some stretches. Although they got really dirty and tore up their pants, they feel this helped them to open the 15 minute lead that they later gave back on another very steep downhill (see above).
- ARMD team had a scary moment on the final descent. Deb slipped on the narrow (and, of course, steep) path and nearly fell down the embankment; some quick reflexes by her teammate Kathy, and some well-placed trees, broke her fall and Deb came away with just a dislocated thumb. She estimates she still 20 feet or more down, but fortunately it wasn't any more!
- Wijnand Jager, from Holland, confirmed that his home country has no hills or anything like the terrain he saw today. Steep - steep - steep were his exact words!
- Richmond ASR racer Greg Klisch crossed the finish line with leg cramps and his wife, Brigitta, carrying a lot of his gear. They earned their 3rd place finish, but Greg is looking forward to some good rest tonight before a challenging stage tomorrow.