Only three weeks left

42nd Stage - Nairne-Tailem Bend - 64.7 km

Only three weeks of competition remain in the TransAustralia Foot Race, and all the best ultamarathon runners are well aware of that fact. The most important thing for the competitors at the moment is not to get injured. Places are more or less decided and only injuries could change them.

The fight for fifth place overall still hasn't been decided, especially since Molnar managed to narrow down his deficit to Francis to only two minutes and 22 seconds. "My legs still aren't OK, but I'm glad not to have retired from the race. I'm the youngest in this race and my time is yet to come," said the Hungarian as he was prepearing lunch in his mobile home. This struggle for fifth place remains the main attraction of the competition.

Goerge Audley is closer to his rivals with each step. Although today he didn't run as fast as he did on some previous stages, he still maneged to beat his opponents, Schieke, Kobus and Schlett, by 22 minutes. "Yesterday's run in the hills, brought back the pain to my injured leg, so I was running a little more carefully today. Tomorrow could be the right time to open up a bottle," said the oldest competitor. He was lucky enough to win a bottle of excellent wine from the Knappstein wine cellar at Bernie Farmer's birthday party. While most of the other lucky winners (Sakurai, Schwerk and Juki from the Japanese escorting team) openned up their bottles at the party, George decided to wait until he catches up with one of his rivals.Karl-Heinz's advantage over George is only 32 minutes and 50 seconds so tomorrow could be D day.

Anatoliy is still in a class of its own, running with the same pace as in the beggining of the competition. His advantage over second-placed Derxed is now 10 hours and 37 minutes. Sakurai's deficit is 30 hours and 51 minutes, Mravlje's is four hours bigger. Dusan was running with his average pace, because the two days with little competition tired him as much as two ordinary stages. "I'm glad that the competition is back to normal, because walking from one traffic light to another really started ro get on my nerves, and without a clear head one can't run such distances," commented "The Slovene Machine". The next days are going to be hot again, because the competitors will be running on the main road that leads from Adelaide to Melbourne.

Results

1. Anatoliy Kruglikov, Russia 4.46.05
2. Andrei Derxen, Russia 5.15.10
3. Kaname Sakurai, Japan 5.20.37
4. Mihaly Molnar, Hungary 5.35.03
5. Mick Francis, Australia 5.37.25
6. Dusan Mravlje, Slovenia 5.45.25
7. Wolfgang Schwerk, Germany 6.09.02
8. Bobby Brown, Great Britain 6.23.00
9. Georgs Jermolajevs, Latvia 6.31.59
10. Marcus Muller, Germany 6.37.16
11. Paul Every, Australia 6.46.33
12. George Audley, Australia 7.07.34
13. Helmut Schieke, Germany 7.28.55
13. Karl-Heinz Kobus, Germany 7.28.55
15. Stefan Schlett, Germany 7.28.59

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