Raid Gauloises on MountainZone.com

Team Montrail handily won the 12th edition of the Raid Gauloises, beating a strong field in a tragedy-marred edition of the original adventure race.

The bike portion of the Raid
Courtesy of Raid Gauloises

Held this year in the remote and forbidding Kyrgyz Republic, the Raid Gauloises covered fearsome territory, as the 39 co-ed teams of adventurers trekked, mountain biked, canoed, rode horses and rock climbed over 800 kilometers. Team Montrail's winning time was just over seven full days.

It is only the second time in the Raid's history that an American team has won, and it marks Team Montrail's first win in one of the world's three most prestigious adventure races.

Their joy in winning is tempered, however, by events early in the race that remind all competitors that adventure racing, while generally safe, can be fatally dangerous. Dominique Roberts, a 46-year-old former Raid Champion, died on Tuesday, June 10th by drowning. According to reports from the Raid, she and a teammate were river canoeing when they were overturned in rapids and pinned beneath a downed tree. The Raid organizers had many safety measures in place at the spot of the tragedy, but even with a speedy response were unable to revive her. Ms. Roberts was a mother of two competing in her ninth Raid Gauloises.

After a daylong hiatus dedicated to mourning and celebrating the memory of atremendous competitor, the race continued, and several teams swapped the lead over the next four days.

"The teams rounded the final bend on each others heels and the two-day tussle was literally decided over a hundred-metre sprint..."

Eventually, Montrail was able to pull away from the field by utilizing their greatest collective strength: paddling. All four members of the team, Captain Rebecca Rusch, Patrick Harper, Novak Thompson and John Jacoby, are champion paddlers, and Rebecca and Patrick both competed for the United States in winning White Water Rafting World Championships.

Rebecca mentioned that this was the most closely-fought race in her career, and that any of several teams could have won. "After a disastrous horse-riding section, we could see Team Human Link (Sweden) and thought they might catch us. So we just got on our bikes and rode as hard as we could. "The effort paid off, as the team was the first to begin the penultimate paddling leg, a white-water rafting section that dictated that all teams had to be off the water before nightfall. Team Montrail was the only team to complete the section before the _dark zone_ began, and forged ahead while the other teams could only wait, and watch.

Human Link (SE) came in to the finish 2h30 after Montrail (US) and just over an hour ahead of Ertips(FR), having put in the fastest time on the final 40km canoeing section. Their performance came as a surprising result for such a young and relatively inexperienced team. They had already made a splash by finishing third in their opening X-adventure Raid Series in Scotland last month. Specialists in orienteering and mountain-biking, they fully exploited both these areas of expertise to sustain their challenge for the lead, only to fall foul of the rafting cut off by 15 minutes and watch their hopes of first place disappear into the distance along with eventual race winners MONTRAIL (US). ERTIPS finished 3rd in the 2003 Raid Gauloises just like last year. A position with which they are entirely satisfied given the strength of the opposition.

"The Swedes are very strong navigators and they did an excellent job on the last trek. They easily deserve second place," admitted Gilles Zok at the finish. "We were at least an hour ahead of Human Link (SE) at the time. We lost about 2hrs looking for the right path. We looked all over the place, even cut down trees. We even thought about carving out our own path," recounted Jerome Dumoulin.

"After going around in circles for a good while we decided to sit down with Buff Extreme (SP) and see what the Swedes do. Suddenly we saw them high up on the mountain along on the ridge and knew they had found the right track. We set off after them but they were already too ahead and they cunnugly turned off their headlamps so we couldn't follow them," Jerome explained. "Next we lost about 15 minutes when we had trouble fixing our canoes together and we never made up the time. It was a lot like Vietnam last year: I don't think we were hungry enough to come back at the race leaders. As for me; I think I still have a lot to learn in navigation. I was the only navigator this year and that's a lot of responsibility to carry on one pair if shoulders."