CAPE TOWN, 26 November 2005 — The Arab Team ranked 31st out of 50 teams entered in the Red Bull Cape Town Man extreme relay race, despite facing difficulties in the competition’s second stage here on Wednesday.
Thanks to Moroccan Runner Lahcen Ahansal and Saudi Paraglider Abdullah Al Bari Arab team, representing Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Lebanon and Morocco, managed to reduce the considerable time difference in the mountain biking stage.
Right after his departure, UAE biker Rashed Ghulam suffered from a flat tire. However, and after taking the relay, Ahansal used his full strength and running energy to finish the third stage in the 5th position.
Al Bari, competing in the fourth and last stage, maintained his position till the finish point, carrying his team scoring to the 31st position.
As the rest of the kitesurfers, Fadi Abdo did not compete in the launching stage. The supposed-to-be kitesurfing first stage had to be canceled due to disappointing weather conditions.
The Arab team finished the race in 3hours 48 minutes and 24 seconds.
On the other hand, Team Leingruber Personal, an Austrian/Dolomiten Mann team has reigned supreme at the inaugural extreme team relay race.
With their paraglider touching down at the finish at 12h43mins the team completed the challenging route in just over 2 1/2 hours, beating off tough competition from 50 teams in this the biggest ever extreme relay race held on the African continent.
“It was really hard race, harder even than the Red Bull Dolomiten Man,” said Peter Presslauer, mountain biker for Team Leingruber Personal.
“For us it was very, very hot. Back home it is now about 5 degrees and there is snow. The course was great, very technical, riding through the city had danger and it was very exciting.” “The international teams have dominated all the way,” said Race Director Dezroy Poole. “But it’s been very close.
The top SA mountain biker came in 11th, but he was just six minutes behind the leader.
Lieuwe Boonstra, a top South African triathlete did a world-class run and his team Intel placed fourth overall was the first SA team to finish.”
Leingruber Personal only took the lead during the mountain run. Sid Taberlay of Team Australia came first in the mountain biking leg after a fast 36km on tar and dirt.
Kicking off the race with a mass start at Sunset Beach on western seaboard of Cape Town the mountain bikers raced through the working harbor, into the busy city center and the historic Cape Castle of Good Hope before hitting the dirt on a very technical course that zigzagged over the lower slopes of Table Mountain and up Devil’s Peak before speeding back to Transition 1 at Deer Park.
Taberlay tagged his team mountain runner Ben du Bois after approximately 1 hour 10 minutes in the saddle.
Peter Presslauer, mountain biker for the winning team came 4th in the mountain biking, but was just one minute behind Taberlay.
It was 15 minutes into the run that Team Leingruber Personal took and retained the lead as New Zealander Jonathan Wyatt powered past the other athletes.
Wyatt was a hot contender to win this leg having recently won both the World Championship Mountain Run and the running leg of Dolomiten Mann (brother event to Red Bull Cape Town Man). He completed the grueling 12km race in 1 hour 6 minutes and 5 seconds but he admits that even he didn’t run up the steepest parts of Table Mountain.
