Friday Night Finish Line Drama

Rob Howard & Anne-Marie Dunhill / 14.11.2014

No one was quite sure who was where as 4 teams moved towards the finish line. The trackers were not updating well in the kayaks and the teams were taking different routes into the finish. On the finish line there was intense excitement – a team was coming in, but which one?

Emerging into the floodlights from the darkness it was Tecnu!  They were so elated the exhaustion fell away from them and they jumped, hugged and shouted for joy, and they had good reason to. They had finished 4^th, passing 3 teams in the last 30 minutes of their race!

“We passed Raidlight on the water,” said a wide eyed Kyle Peter, “and saw adidas TERREX ahead of us, but they took a wrong channel. We were pumped up and I said, ‘Let’s race this to the end and see what happens’. So we jogged and there were Jacky and Mimi’s team on the beach. We hardly realised it was them but ran past them! We were weighed down with all our paddling gear but still managed a sprint and then on the line we knew we had 4^th. Amazing!”

Just behind them came a very dispirited French team and they didn’t even stop on the line to celebrate or have any pictures taken. They just pushed through the gathering of supporters and photographers. They were sat down in the press area and given some food, and when asked about the experience of the race Mimi Guillot said in French quietly to her team, “Do we tell the truth or be polite”. They really didn’t say much and clearly didn’t want to answer questions, then later their sponsor was ranting loudly about the team being held up by a photographer. It was a sad way to see some great racers end this race and a striking contrast to the Tecnu celebrations still going on at the finish line.

After a slightly longer gap adidas TERREX were next across the line, looking happy to have finished and saying that Raidlight had got lost on the walk into the finish line! The British team shook hands with Tecnu and exchanged stories of their finishes. The two teams are great rivals and friends, and shared 3^rd place last year.

Raidlight eventually found their way into the finish hotel and they too looked happy to have made the finish in such a good position.

It’s been quite here at Mompiche and an amazing finale to the race for the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th and 7^th placed teams.

You can follow the race live at http://live.huairasinchi.com/

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