Click here to go to race index page

Sakurai’s End

The night in Eden was full of expectations, because rain had cooled the air. The last four days of the competition, in the hills of New South Wales, could have been pleasant and relaxing, but that wasn’t to be. The police forbade the caravan to take the narrow road that leads from Eden to Bego, because of the search of a missing young man, and they could not guarantee total security of the runners. The caravan was therefore redirected to a by-route.The organisers decided to drastically shorten the stage, because of the "shortcut" to Canberra they were forced to take. Consequently, the start of the stage was postponed from 6 a.m to noon, which was good thing, since it had been raining in the morning. The weather cleared up and the runners were ready for their "quick jog".

While everyone else had little trouble with this short stage, Kaname knew that the end was near. After first 500 meters the Japanese sat on the road and was going through the hardest moments in the competition. Nevertheless, he decided to give it his last shot and needed an hour and a half to walk the first four kilometers. With the help of a stick, he walked through the whole stage, knowing that he could’t make the time limit (5.6 km/h). The rain cought him and Kaname was completely soaked, but that didn’t stop him from reaching the finish in just under five hours. "I’m very disappointed, although I did give it my best try. I will, nevertheless, stay with the caravan till the end, because I want to see my fellow-runners reach Canberra."

Andrei Derxen and Paul Every started off the fastest. Paul, who achieved his most important goal yestarday, was running very relaxed. Anatoliy Kruglikov was running surprisingy slowly, he even stopped for a while and said with a misterious smile: "Today, March 8., is dedicated to all the women." The struggle for fith place between Molnar and Francis has, because of Sakurai’s sad end, turned into a struggle for fourth position, which is going to be interesting to the very end of the competition. Francis wasn’t thrilled with this short stage and managed to gain only 42 seconds, but was nevertheless optimistic: "It’s easier to attack than to defend, so Mihaly will have to give it all he’s got, if he wants to hang on to fourth place. I’m aware of his problems with injury, so I’m ready to attack once again tomorrow." It was raining throughout the whole afternoon, and the rain is bound to make the conditions a bit more difficult on tomorrow’s stgage, which will be 75 kilometers long. The competitors only have 200 kilometers left to run, before they reach Canberra.

Results

Back to CoolRunning Trans-Australia Footrace HomePage