Monday, September 11, 2006

Raid Update: Day 3!

It's Day Three of the Raid World Championship, and over night the top teams grabbed some rest, and prepared for todays long (139km) bike leg. Current leader Les Arcs-Quechua rested for four hours before heading out, while Wilsa Sport/Helly Hansen, and Nike Powerblast elected to take six hours of sleep. Nike is especially good on the bikes, so I'd guess they feel like they can make up the ground out on the course, while eliminating more of the mandatory rest time. All in all, there were roughly six teams within forty minutes of one another at the top of the leaderboard last night. At the moment, the leaderboard is experiencing technical issues, so I can't give an up to date list of the standings. However, you can read more about in the Overnight Update at the Official Site of the race.

Update: The Leaderboards are working again. At the moment, Wilsa Sport - Helly Hansen and Les Arcs Quechua share a virtual tie for the lead, about an hour or so up on the next pack of teams, which includes Sport 2000 - Lafuma, Team Spyder, Nike Powerblast, and GoLite TImberland, all of which are very close to one another. Nike has banked up the most rest time of the top teams however, and Sport 2000 - Lafuma lags behind the others in that department. I know I've said it in a couple of my previous posts, but I can't help but say it again. Having the Compulsory Rest Time remaining listed on the leaderboard really helps to understand what is happening out there. Such a great addition that I hope all the major races provide in the future. At this point, I think it's only a matter of time before Sport 2000 starts to fall off the pace. They have six hours less rest time than Nike, and that's going to take it's toll. Plus, they simply have to stop, by race rules, at some point to, to catch up to the others in that area.

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