Here comes our MYAU 2017 Athlete Survey. If you participated in this year’s race please do take a couple of minutes to answer the questions. Your feedback is very important! And thank you Julie Pritchard for helping with putting the survey together.
The last 430 mile athlete, Uwe Paschke, finished his race and was super happy. Once again, congratulations to all finishers! And a big thank you to all athletes who came to the Yukon to try it. I will soon write a little summary report on how things went.
Since all 430 milers were in Dawson before Feb. 18th, parts of the crew and some athletes already left for Whitehorse on the 17th. Yesterday the last shuttle bus brought back everybody else. All transports made it south without any problems and we had a very nice get together at the Coast High Country Inn.
The results tabel is almost complete and hopefully I will soon be able to upload more photos. Antje from the volunteer team has set up a Dropbox account and I can upload any photos from anybody who is willing to share. As soon as it is all done, I will let everyone know how it works. If you want to contribute your photos, please send these to me via wetransfer.com (really easy tool). Re. Joe Bishop’s photos, I will talk to him and we will decide how these can be accessed and used.
I should soon be able to email out a survey and hope to get as much feedback as possible. The feedback I have already received was very positive. However, I am sure that there are things we can still try and improve. So, please do feel free to give me your input.
I want to thank our sponsors. As always, this race would be impossible without them. It was only due to Montane’s contribution that we were able to have Yann and Thilo with us to film and make the race even more interesting to follow. Montane also always supports the crew with clothing and I have seen many athletes out there using Montane product. It’s great quality and it simply works!
Thank you to Primus for supplying fuel and stoves and Carinthia for the great sleeping bags. Thank you to our local sponsors Driving Force, Total North, Yukon Yamaha, Coast Mountain Sports, Coast High Country Inn, Downtown Hotel and Yukon Quest. A BIG thank you also to the Canadian Rangers for putting in that trail.
Thank you Yann and Thilo for your videos. I will watch these many times and I am sure the same goes for all those involved in this year’s MYAU.
Thank you to our checkpoints: Rolland from Rivendell Farm, Steve, Lee & team at Braeburn Lodge, Bernard at Ken Lake, the Carmacks Rec Center, the Kruse Family at McCabe, Selkirk First Nations in Pelly Crossing, Sue, Dale and the tireless helpers at Pelly Farm, the KVA in Dawson City, Stewart Stirling who was in charge of Dog Grave Lake and Indian River.
Last but certainly not least THANK YOU to the crew! You have been amazing. Diane, Lucy, Sue, Adam, Stu, Sarah, Trish, Celia, Theresa, Mandy, Julie, Antje, Jo, Friedhelm, Marcel, Marta, Pam, Graham, Mal, Alfredo, Jessica, Mike and the guides Gary, Glenn, Spencer, Tony, Ross, Robert, Tom, Joe. Great job eveyone.
Jessie Thomson-Gladish crossed our Dawson City finish line at 01:04. It’s the second time she finishes the 430 mile race. Once again she has amazed the entire crew with her performance. She is always in a good mood and she still does not seem tired. Superhuman!
Now we are waiting for only one more athlete. Uwe Paschke from Germany is not far away.
All other athletes who still were in the race finished on Feb. 16th. For the times please check our results table.
It has been an extremely challenging race this year. Very cold, high humidity, fresh snow, “warm” with soft snow, wind blown trails, … you name it. So, congratulations to all athletes who were able to overcome all these challenges and arrive here in the city of the gold rush.
Today Daniel Benhammou (at 19:42), Jan Francke (at 20:19) and Julian Hall (at 21:34) reached our 430 mile finish line in Dawson City. Daniel (USA) who already is a 300 mile finisher took 3rd place. He said he kind of had forgotten just how long these days out there are. Jan Francke (Czech Republic) had already tried the 430 miles in 2015 and had to scratch at the time. Back then he started out too fast and got problems with his achilles. This year he took it a bit easier and it worked out great for him. He is still in really good shape. No major pains. Jan takes rank 4. Julian Hall (UK) has had problems with his achilles over the last couple of days but decided definitely not to stop this close to the finish line. So, he is suffering but with a period of rest he will recover and I am sure soon start planning his next adventure. Julian places 4th.
Now we are waiting for Boris Tramm from Germany who should be here in the early morning hours.
Enrico Ghidoni from Italy arrived at the Dawson City 430 mile finish line today at 08:40. Simon Reed from England arrived 11:40. Enrico had received a time penalty of 12 hours for forgetting his mandatory down jacket at Carmacks CP. As this would have meant a change in results, Simon Reed’s insulation jacket was checked upon his arrival in the city of the gold rush. Unfortunately, Simon could only show an insulation jacket that clearly does not comply with the race rules. Which resulted in a 12 hour time penalty for him. It seemed the fairest possible solution. Both made mistakes with mandatory kit and both received a penalty. So, in the end Enrico who did reach the finish line first also placed first in the foot category. Both showed an incredible performance and are winners. Congratulations!
We are now waiting for the next athletes to finish. All of them are making good progress and should finish before the cut-off time on Feb. 18th 10:30 AM.
Stefan Zahlten from Germany crossed the Pelly finish line yesterday at 19:30 to place 2nd. At 23:15 Laura Trentani from Italy finished for 3rd overall and 1st in the women’s category. Borja Fernandez arrived at 06:38 this morning. He is 4th overall and 3rd men’s. All of them were on foot. Great effort guys and congratulations!
Bernhard Hasenbald from Germany crossed the Dawson City finish line late afternoon yesterday to take 1st place in our 430 mile race. Congratulations Bernhard!
Enrico Ghidoni is currently in second place (and first in foot category) and has left Indian River. Due to a 12 hour time penalty for leaving behind mandatory gear at a checkpoint, Enrico may end up placing 3rd as Simon Reed from England is not too far behind.
James Binks had to scratch this morning just after Pelly Farm due to problems with his achilles. All other 430 miles are going strong and hopefully all of them will reach the finish line by February 18th, 10:30 AM at the latest.
