Raid Gallacecia Expedition Race
Haglofs Silva Win Raid Gallaecia
Rob Howard / 15.05.2015
Team Haglofs Silva are the winners of the first ever Raid Gallaecia.
The team crossed the line on the fourth day of the race at 18.17 on a bright sunny afternoon, walking slowly across the huge square in front of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. At first the team did not seem sure where to go, but then they spotted the finish arch in the corner of the square and strolled across, mingling with the tourists and pilgrims who travel from all over the world to visit this famous spot. There was no hurry as they had a good lead and could take their time to enjoy the moment.
On the last day of the race they had opened up a clear gap against rivals Seagate after an intense period of neck and neck racing overnight. The teams had swapped the lead on and off for some time, but in the end it was the Swedish quartet who proved stronger and made less mistakes.
Remarkably they had changed their line up just 3 weeks before the race, with Jari Palonen coming in to race with them. He had never raced with the team before and said, “I wasn’t really trained for this at all so it was hard to keep up! I had been in training for 2 hour mountain bike races! The hardest was the mountain running as the guys are really strong at that and I had to run faster than I ever have before. The kayaking went OK and I was surprised we kept up with Seagate so well on the water.”
Palonen is not a full time athlete (he works in laser eye surgery), but says his employers are very flexible and if he has a little notice he can race if called on. “I am a bit of a racing mercenary,” he said, “there is often someone who has to pull out of a team, and I get chances to step in. Who knows if I will race with Haglofs Silva again.”
Team regular Josefina Wikberg said, “It feels good to win, especially as Seagate have beaten us so many times!” I asked if Seagate stopping to sleep at CP75 and letting them take the lead had given them encouragement and she said, “No, we thought they would be more rested and then they caught us soon after that.” She also said that Bjorn Rydvall’s diagnosis of diabetes just before the race (which meant Palonen had to step in), had been a distraction for team.
In fact she wasn’t sure quite why or how the team had won, just glad that they had! All of the team were very calm on the finish, celebrating in a very understated Swedish way. Robert Lindberg was keen to find some food (there was bread and dried meat on a table nearby), and Matthias Nystrom said the scratches from the gorse were the worst part of the race. All of team had badly scratched legs.
He added, “The navigation was hard as you to concentrate on every turn, you couldn’t switch off at any time. We preferred the cooler days with the cold wind as it is still quite cold in Sweden, for us the hot days were harder.” Asked about the highlight of the race he said, “The scenery on the coast was the best.”
The team wins the title and a paid for place on the start line of the AR World Championships in Brazil later in the year, where their rivalry with current world champions Team Seagate will be resumed.
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