Strong Swedes Take No Bull

Adam Rose / 17.05.2017

Wednesday morning, shortly after 7:00, we found team Skylotec Adventure in the final TA, boxing bikes and getting gear ready for the final 48km trek along the coast and through dune fields, to the finish.

They looked fresh enough, and were able to string a coherent sentence together, despite only having 10 minutes sleep since the dark zone before the Baviaans canyon leg. Jonas Andersson busied himself copying the stage CPs off the master map on to their own set, wolfed down a koeksister (a plaited doughnut dipped in syrup), then retired to his foil sleeping bag, as did the rest of the team, bar Marten Svensson, who was still hungry. Normally they would have sped out of the transition as fast as possible, with teams Thunderbolt AR (Australia), Nevarest Jabberwock (South African) and East Wind (Japan) breathing down their necks, but they had to serve a one hour penalty due to contravening route directions at the end of the final kayak stage. The same for Thunderbolt AR.

Marten was gracious enough to sit with us for 15 minutes as he ate. Talking about the final bike ride, he described how they had had a problem, together with the Australian team Thunderbolt AR, looking for CP40. There were eight people walking around in the bushes looking for ‘diggings’. Then Thunderbolt continued on, as they thought the CP was lost. Skylotec backtracked, reassessed the distance they’d covered, and found it.

When both teams were met by Stephan Muller en route, to tell them about the trekking penalty, he gave Thunderbolt the option of continuing without the CP but they’d be penalised as per the rules, so Thunderbolt made the hard decision of retracing their steps, near TA4.

This race was the first time Skylotec was racing together as a team but the three men knew each other already. Marten and Jonas have raced together previously, most recently at the 2016 World Championships, the 2016 European AR Championships, and in China at a stage race.

He said Expedition Africa had been going very smoothly for them, and… they had Malin Hjalmarsson. A last-minute replacement for Johanna Wallensten, she had been “very, very good.” The three men have each been the pack horses in previous teams, and Malin was obviously a pack horse herself, so they are very strong together. She isn’t the fastest female adventure racer in Sweden, arguably, but she’d done everything herself – no requirement for anyone to carry her pack. Definitely not the weakest link.

It sounds like a dream team, since they clearly have the navigational skills to match, and ability to perform at championship level. One to watch.

Unfortunately for Skylotec, Malin is not available for the Cowboy Tough World Championships as she is racing with her regular team, Swedish Armed Forces. Furthermore, at 14:30, Skylotec still doesn’t have an entry to the Cowboy Tough, they are a very new team and didn’t anticipate being in a position to enter it. They will speak with their sponsors if they win Expedition Africa, as they will have proved their worth, and there are lot of expenses for the Championships. At the same time, there is always next year, and they already have plans to enter a stage race in China in the Autumn.

The highlight so far, for Marten, has been the Baviaans trek. He didn’t know what to expect, and although it was both beautiful and enjoyable, he imagines they probably missed plenty of animals they walked passed, blissfully unaware. The team certainly saw a lot of prints on the ground.

Near CP 21, they had an encounter with a buffalo, the only team to get to close to real danger. It was three metres away, in the night, and they saw its eyes. Initially taken aback, they used the air horn and shouted, which proved enough to convince the buffalo to move away. A close call. They are also the envy of many other teams for this encounter.

This close to the finish, they are all injury free. Marten’s feet looked disgustingly healthy, and he said he hadn’t really paid them much attention. Obviously he has a foot preparation method that works, because this event has been hard on the feet, judging by the feedback from the other teams.

One area that did prove taxing was the number of punctures, especially on stage 7, the second bike leg. Both thorns and cactuses had them regularly changing tubes, and it’s well known in South African MTB circles that going tubeless is sound advice. The last bike stage saw them reduced to one spare tube and tyre. The team had been worried that a final puncture would leave them stranded mid-stage in the middle of nowhere. In this case, fortune favours the bold.

If they continue at their current pace, they are likely to be on top of the podium within the hour. Excuse me, please, but I’m off to the beach to welcome them in!

Follow the action live at www.expafrica.live

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