Triple victory on Haglöfs Åre Extreme Challenge

Robert won the 2014 Haglöfs Åre Extreme Challenge with a total race time of 5 hours and 1 minute. Björn finished 2nd and Mattias managed to pass Scott Cole on the last climb to take 3rd. A really good day for the team!!

As expected, Robert started the race with a really strong kayaking and got a good gap to all others racing for the overall result, with only Danny Halmén in front (who where mainly focusing on the kayak leg). At the transition in Åre, Robert had a two minute lead over Mattias and another minute on Björn, who where 3rd and 4th in total. Björn and Robert kept a similar pace on the 1000 m vertical climb over Åreskutan, while Mattias got passed by Scott Cole. Robert where flying on the downhill run to Huså and increased his gap to Björn (who also lost some time after placing his knee on a pretty sharp rock…). At transition in Huså, Robert had a 7 minute gap to Björn, who had Scott chasing less than 2 minutes behind with Mattias another minute behind.

Robert and Björn kept a similar pace on the finishing bike section, Björn putting in a very hard effort to secure his 2nd place, Robert cruising along and enjoying his day… The big fight was for 3rd place, where Mattias gradually managed to reduce the gap to Scott and eventually caught him on the long swamp section above ÅreBjörnen. Mattias stayed behind Scott for a while until he did his move on the last long climb, where Scott could not follow him. At the finish, Robert was 8 minutes ahead of Björn and another 8 minutes ahead of Mattias who filled up the podium. Pretty good day for the team!!

Big thanks to Josefina, Micke, Martin and Marie for the support at transitions, to our Haglöfs family for all cheering and laughing and to Hjalmar at Concept Store for fixing our bikes. This would also have been much harder without the support from our sponsors; Haglöfs, Silva, Specialized, Enervit, Icebug, Nordenmark, x-kross, Hestra, Aclima, Gainomax, Mountainhouse, Source, Uhrweder and Xinix!