The AR World Championships - Costa Rica
Axa Adidas - A Wrong Turn But Still in the Race
Team Axa adidas / 06.12.2013
At the start of the race Swedish team AXA adidas were among the top 10, but it all went wrong in the mangrove swamp and they were stuck out there for two nights while the race moved away from them. if you were wondering what happened this is their story from the team website.
Mikael Lindnord, the team captain, has never quit on a race yet - and he's not about to start now.
With 7km left to the TA4, the team decided to walk in with the kayaks along the gravel road next to the river. This due to the strong current. They where hungry and very thirsty. They have had really bad luck with the tide, and Mikael said that of the 48h they been out they have had the tide with them for about 20 minutes… All of them have sore muscle from the hard paddling. They have been sleeping two times in the Mangrove in their silver blankets. They lost a lot of time between CP16 and CP17, were they waited on the tide to cross a small river, but when the tide never came, they had to paddle around about 12km extra.
When reaching TA4 they walked over to the restaurant located at the TA to eat Pizza. Anders said they are relieved to finally be at the TA and that it’s been really tough with barley any food and water. They explain what made them fall back in the field, after fighting in the top, as two bad mutual decisions. Which lead too, that they ended up 50 meter wrong in a different river, they searched for the right river but couldn’t find it. At that time they took a rest and got stranded in 30 cm deep clay cause of the tide. At the moment this is a mental disappointment, after all, as they described, the right turn could have meant downstream and positive tides. And still a god chance of fighting in the top.
Mike said that he’d been wrong about the amount of food needed for the kayak section. Their focus is now all about taking care of them self, load up with food and water again, clean up and get changed. Their now fighting to make the “mid race cut”, which is december 9th at 14.00 o’clock before starting the next kayak/rafting section. This will be a 9 day race form now on and Mike explains that all this “small” thing are now crucial and very important. Everyone still believe that they can make a top 10th place by making this cut and just finish the race.
Next section will be mountain biking, first on the flats before reaching the mountains again with steep and technical climbing. Just before reaching the Zip Line the team have to bike a 7 km long hill, probably the steepest on the whole course with its 30 degree angle at some spots. The Zip Line is almost 1,5-2 km long and it covers a lot of tough downhill terrain before they have to continue on their bikes again.
You can read the Team AXA adidas website at http://www.axa-adidas.com/
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