Tonight we saw the arrival of Hanno Heiss winner of the 430 mile foot race who completed the race in 9 days 8 hours and 55 minutes. Congratualtions Hanno, an awesome effort and well deserved.
We also welcomed in Peter Felten of Germany, third place in the mountain bike discipline who insisted on waiting until Hanno had caught up with him before he crossed the finish line at Dawson City today. Congratulations to all these superb athletes who have been through extreme temperatures, endless miles of tree lined, snow covered trails, long expanses of frozen lake and frightening patches of river with exposed overflow. But they have reached their goal and can go home happy and proud of their amazing achievement.
But what of the others, let us not forget that there is still four and half days to go and 9 athletes still to finish. So who are they? The next one we expect to come cruising into to town is Spaniard Joel Jaile Casademont who may well be in, in the early hours of tomorrow morning or possibly later tomorrow.
Then we have Pat Cooke Rogers who will be the first woman to complete the 430 miles on a bike.
Sean Brown has been here before, completing the 300 miles in 2007, he’s one determined athlete keeping on returning so we are rooting for him to complete the race this year J.
Mathieu Bonnier, awesome Frenchman who is no stranger to epic journeys having rowed the Atlantic and the North West Passage – this is just a walk in the park …
Our Swedish skiers, David Erixon and Niclas Bentzer who, having skied from the bottom of Norway to the top are taking on one of the most difficult ski trails in the world (I know, I speak from experience, so I will be hugely proud of them when they cross the finish line.).
Bernhard Hasenbalg has also been here before, he had to scratch from the 430 miles at Pelly Farm in 2013 but has come back doubly strong and is still looking good. He’s currently resting up at Scroggie with Sean ready to take on the world again tomorrow morning.
And then we have our ladies … Jessie Thomson-Gladish, local Yukoner, full of determination and drive. We also have Julie Pritchard British resident of Italy who last year completed the Marathon des Sables – talk about extremes – the desert to the arctic in one fell swoop! Go girls!
So lets see what develops over the next couple of days as the race progresses. Once they are through Scroggie its all down hill from there (well actually not really as there is the really fun bit of Titans Dome to climb but don’t tell them that! 😉
