1997 Eco-Challenge
August 12: Eco-Challenge claims first victims
By Dan Morrison
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An Eco-Challenge staffer preps
canoes at the Herbert River
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At exactly 18 hours and 50 minutes into the 1997 Eco-Challenge, the race claimed its first victim.
Chloe Lanthier, a 30-year-old fitness consultant and member of Team Canada, had fallen ill during the night and her condition continued to deteriorate. In the morning she began to suffer severe nausea and a migraine headache. Still, she continued to push on.
By 11:20 a.m. her exhaustion had become debilitating and the pain had become unbearable. She finally threw in the towel. And with her withdrawal, Team Canada was officially out of the race. The first — but most assuredly only the first of many — to go.
Very soon afterwards, Andrea Spitzer, a 29-year-old model and athlete from Los Angeles, suffered a medial collateral injury to her knee and was forced to withdraw, putting her group, Team Buffalo Rojo Spain out of the event.
Spitzer is a two-time World Champion Quadrathlete; a four-time European Champion Quadrathlete; and a winner of the 1997 X-Games.
Lanthier is one of Canada's most accomplished mountaineers, who placed 10th in the '96 Eco-Challenge in British Columbia, was the top woman in the '97 Iditasport Alaska mountain bike race, was fifth in the women's division in the '97 Marathon des Sables, and took the silver medal in the '92 Canadian National Master rowing championship.
None of that mattered. They are both now statistics.
By 3:40 p.m. on Tuesday, less than 24 hours from the start of the race, the slowest team in the race, Team Eco-Tonatiuh, had managed to cover 43 kilometers. In the same amount of time, the lead team, Team Endeavour, had already put 87 kilometers behind them, and were paddling an inflatable canoe down the crocodile-infested Herbert River.
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Racers paddling the Herbert River
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If Team Endeavour could maintain its current pace, which would be nearly impossible since they have spent almost no time sleeping up to this point — or for that matter eating — but if they could, they would finish this race at 8:13 p.m. on Friday the 15th, in just over five days. And the chances of that happening?
Think snowball in hell.
Still, up to now Team Endeavour continues to progress smoothly. When they broke out of the outback forest and strolled into PC-6 this afternoon, they were laughing.
"Things are fine," team captain Cooper-Lovelace said as she had her passport signed, "no problems at all."
Within minutes they had collected their two inflatable canoes and had begun what is estimated to be a 10-hour paddle down the Herbert River, a favorite haunt of freshwater crocodiles.
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Team SCAR prepares to start
the canoe leg
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Just seven minutes later Team R.O.A.M. checked in to begin their canoe leg. A darkhorse team, Team R.O.A.M. was not invited to participate in this year's Eco-Challenger but earned the right convincingly at the qualifying race. If they continue to maintain their pace, it can be assumed there is a better than even chance they'll be invited to the '98 race in Morocco.
Team Odyssey rolled into PC-6 next, followed by Team New Zealand.
At seven minutes shy of 4 p.m., Team S.C.A.R. arrived at the checkpoint, putting to rest one of several rumors floating about the course.
The word on the street (or I suppose the word in the jungle would be more appropriate) was that S.C.A.R. team captain David Kelly had blown a knee and that the team's demise was imminent.
"Naw," Kelly laughed when informed of the scuttlebutt, "John Howard started that rumor. He's worried about us this year."
Howard, a member of Team Eco-Internet, the defending champions, may or may not be worried about David Kelly's health. But worried or not, Howard's team has yet to break into the top 10.
From PC-6 the teams will paddle through the night and will arrive at the ropes course rigged at Herbert Falls at first light.
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Tracyn Thayer,
Team Red Wolf
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Just about any self-respecting athlete can hike for miles, even at night through outback forest. And most people are capable of paddling a canoe, although admittedly having to dodge 10-foot crocodiles is a bit of an added attraction.
But rope work is different. It takes skill and courage. And rappelling through a waterfall takes something even more. Hard to say exactly what that something is, but whatever it is you gotta have a lot of it.
Rock cliffs aren't the least bit impressed with false bravado or moved at all by group hugs and pep talks. Cliffs enjoy watching people fall. And watching a team of four people fall is four times as enjoyable. Cliffs are evil entities.
So tomorrow morning, very early tomorrow morning, at a time when nearly 200 people have pushed themselves non-stop for almost 48 hours, the race will become just a trifle more interesting.
Dan Morrison covered the Marathon des Sables for Outside Online.
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