Everybody is safely home

First teams arrived to the finish on Friday morning, but for the rest of the pack the race continued much longer. And while first four could conclude the race in a slow pace, as there were big differences between teams, another group of teams had to race until the end. At 18:49 message from CP40 (last before finish) beeped on the cell phone of the race director: “Hi-Tec was here at 18:38. Pavel Paloncy looks really bad send somebody to the border if he has problems swimming.  He should get an infusion and not to swim across the lake. 18:43 – Euroteam, they look good.” At 19:18 another message arrived: “Alpinautic were here, they are motivated and they will race.”

It was a sprint to the finish. As fastest of first four needed 75 minutes to get from CP40 back home, Euroteam only needed 50. For this they took fifth place. Hi-Tec arrived sixth five minutes later. However they had a 15 minutes penalty for not having a lighter during mandatory gear check up. So they set a clock and while they got from 15 to zero they shot their bottle of Champaign. Alpinautic arrived shortly afterwards and took seventh place. The rest of teams were arriving gradually during the whole night. Last to return was Rekre at 9:09 am.

Altogether 13 teams of 18 completed full course. Two other took short course and one team completed as a pair with two members withdrawing for injury. Only two teams withdraw completely. With greatest luck, there were no serious injuries. Twisted finger was the most serious one.

This would be all from the bare facts. However as teams and organizers returned safely to the headquarters they brought their stories. Here are the most interesting of them:

Some teams were really tired after only competed for couple of hours. Following conversation was overheard at the end of orienteering section after mere 12 hours of racing: “What are you doing?” – “Mixing a drink” – “I already did it.” – “Really, when did you do it?” – “While you were sleeping.” – “I was sleeping?”

Another interesting conversation was overheard during rope ascent on Zvikov Bridge: “How is it going?” – “Fine, I can already see the bridge.”

Jan Kotyk lost his headlamp on Zvikov Bridge. He ascended the rope and then leaned over the rail to see what he climbed. His headlamp fell of his head. He tried to catch it and threw his pair of jummars after it.

There were rumors that Exit Team clogged the ropes on Zvikov Bridge because climbing took them 2:30 while others managed it at 1:30. “It is not true,” commented their captain. “There were 4 ropes and we weren’t slow. We were just enjoying the view.”

On CP20 teams had to swim to an island to locate the CP. Most teams swam naked. Tilak team also organized complicated maneuvers to confuse their opponents. “First to swim to the island were me and Tomas,” said team captain Marek Navratil. “However, we could not locate the CP. Then Zuzka and Ales joined us. After a long search we found the lampion but we saw other teams arriving. We did not want to disclose exact location of CP so I ordered to my teammates to disperse to all sides.” Other teams were indeed confused and spent even longer time looking for the lampion in the dark.

It was on the very same CP where Estonian team run barefoot into raspberries and cut their feet. It was the main reason why they given up latter in the race.

There was a big battle between girls to marshal on CP22. The reason became clear shortly after the race. The CP was located on the fork of two rivers and there was no bridge nearby. So most teams swam with their bikes across the river. And again most teams swam naked not to wet their clothes. Jindra, who wan the battle, arrived with a big collection of photos of naked butts.

Rekre team spent 12 hours sleeping in the TA B. “That is not true,” opposed their captain. “We could not sleep because there was so much rustling during the whole night.” After this they voluntarily agreed to take a short course and finished in 71 hours, which was most of all teams.

Team Sport2000 punctured 5 times in a row while pursuing second Tilak. “We had to stop at a local pub and persuade local drunks to find us some spare tubes. They sat into their cars and surprisingly came back a few minutes latter with two spare tubes. And it only cost us three euros,” commented team member Vasek Husak.

On Saturday at 3 am, two members of Adventure PSK walked into the TA A. It was surprising because they should have been four and ride their bikes. After short interrogation they admitted that they were chasing the cut-off and tried to speed up the progress by swimming with the bike across the lake (which is almost 60 meters deep at some places). However their tube overturned and bike sunk. They found it following day, as it was only 5 meters deep.

Team of University Hradec Kralove arrived to CP40 shortly before midnight. As all other teams only needed around one hour to get to the finish, it was surprising when they arrived at 6:42 am. “We were afraid of swimming during night, so we decided to walk around the lake,” commented their captain. “But we were too tired and we took a nap.” Sometimes you can lose over five hours during last hour of the race.

Jan Kotyk was seen running in the camp with kids only one hour after the race. Some people have never enough.

Written by Jan Smolik
Photo by: Jakub Havel, www.havelphoto.com