Team Haglöfs Silva got a great start of the Adventure Racing World Championship in Pantanal, Brazil.
Many teams had been suffering in the strong heat already on the first kayak section, as it was imposible to hide away from the strong sun sitting in a kayak on open water, and with temperatures around 40 degrees celsius and high humidity it must have been a tough challenge. First team to reach the first transition was team Seagate, but Haglöfs Silva was in the chasing group behind and thanks to a strong trekking section Haglöfs Silva made it to the 2nd transition as first team.
The third section was a trekking and pack raft through dense forests and big wetlands. From the satelite tracker it seems as many teams have been struggeling to find their way and that many hours have been spent looking both for checkpoints and a way through the thick djungle with not very durable rubber kayaks… According to the media team following South African team Merrel, many teams had problem to to find one or several checkpoints, maybe because the guys with some of the checkpoints were in the wrong position. No clear information about how that might have affected Team Haglöfs Silva.
The leaderboard has not updated during the last hours and there is no clear information regarding the position of Haglöfs Silva at the third transition, but unfortunately it seems as they might have dropped a few positions. Robert said at the third transition ““We had very little water , with a very dense forest , we tried many options to set the navigation, and we tried, along with other teams like Columbia, Tecnu and Black Hill until we find the path to get out of the valley ” Robert also reported that they had the privilege of seeing both monkeys and crocodiles on this section and numerous of colourful birds.
At the third transition some teams (including leading team Seagate) stopped for a sleep while others pushed on. No information wether Haglöfs Silva slept or not. According to the LIVE-tracker, team Haglöfs Silva are currently on 7th position but there are still some uncertainties regarding the exact position.
The teams in Brazil have been racing for almost 43 hours since the start in saturday. Most of the race coure is still waiting for the teams and there will be many challenges to face with tricky navigation, dense terrain and the strong heat. We expect the leaderboard to change during these coming days. This is gonna be a hard, epic race!
Keep your fingers crossed for our team Haglöfs Silva!
We will update this text as soon as we get more reports.
Follow the race at www.arwcpantanal.com
Keep my fingers crossed for our team Haglöfs Silva in order to give them some luck and hopefully the shortest way between two points avoiding djungle problems!