Team Pharmanex-Spie (27) finally arrives at checkpoint 8 on Monday afternoon, more than an hour off the lead, in 6th place.

The big news of Monday was the unseating of Team Pharmanex-Spie, as the crack unit of Kiwis, Aussies and American finally appeared human when they dropped from first to sixth place in the course of one checkpoint. While they claimed it was intentional and seemed undisturbed by the dramatic turn of events, the fact remains that the race is now opened up to at least six qualified teams.

Enter here for two free tickets on Varig Brazilian Airlines for an authentic adventure of your own. [more]

Pharmanex-Spie had been in the lead since day one, setting the pace and operating like a well-oiled machine. But on Monday they chose a longer route for their horses, losing more than an hour to their archrivals from France, Team FujiFilm. Outside Online went up in the helicopter with GŽrard Fusil just in time to catch them walking into CP8 on Monday afternoon, snapping a photo and quickly landing to hear what happened.

"We wanted to save our horses, because at least two of them are going really slow," said Cathy Sassin as the team removed their horses' saddles for the mandatory rest period. "Instead of the hard rocky road we'd been following, we found a cooler shaded route, with soft sand. We don't mind that it took longer, teams come and go from the front, and anything can still happen."

Sassin's point notwithstanding, Pharmanex-Spie found themselves in sixth place, 1:20 off the lead time of FujiFilm. Between them are two French, one international and one Brazilian team, all within an hour of each other Monday evening — making it any team's race.

The next critical section comes Tuesday morning, when teams will have two major challenges confronting them. One is to swim across the river directly after CP9, as the high water level has made the crossing too dangerous with horses. Once they've done that and hiked the hour to CP10/HQ2/A2, they will quickly change into their trekking and climbing gear, whereupon the real race will begin.

Once set loose to race at their full potential, teams will speed to CP12 — situated near the top of the Serra Do Carnutim range — by 3:00 p.m. Teams that don't arrive at CP12 by three will be stuck there for the night, as the wall is a dark zone. If, however, they get there by three, they will be able to climb the sheer granite wall and then rappel down the other side on Tuesday — effectively shutting the door on a huge chunk of the field.

CP12 is also where the Discovery class will be created, as teams missing their deadline will be re-routed down off the mountain, avoiding the rock climb. But that's all at least a day away, as the first priority for now is to get up early and be across the Rio Coreau and into HQ2 by 10:00 a.m. — as the hike to CP12 takes approximately four hours.