2nd Manche - Saturday 25 Febryary 2012

Today, Saturday we have had an almost perfect race.
The weather was cloudy from time to time and not hot, so almost perfect for dogs and mushers. All trails had been prepared in a perfect way and were much faster than yesterday.
Should there be a perfect race in mid and long distance, Gryon is close to be that one.
All longtrailers left the bivouac this morning at 8:00, every two minutes after a really nice evening with "raclette", music and drinks and night spent at about 7km from the stake-out. Despite the difficulty of the trail, that is really tough to run with heavy sleds, all longtrailers were so happy !! This is the right mentality for mushers.
The leader in LTO is Eric Martinez (F), closely followed by Beate Jaehnig (D). Another excellent German misher, Wolfgang Speer, is first in LT2 with 8 Siberian Huskies. The LT1 class is leaded by Muriel Dufros (F) followed by Frantisek Sadilek (CZ). We should note how good these women are in long trail.
In Middle distance we have had once again a spectacular race. In SJ2, Zdenka Duskova CZ)increased slightly her advance on Walter Gehringer (A) second. Roman Reistetter in SkJ 1dog class also increased his advantage on the second, Gerald Buet (F).
The O class is leaded by Jean Combazard (F) closely followed by Baltasar Gallardo (E).The Swiss Donato Egli, leads the A class followed by Andrea Marcenaro (I).
The B1 and B2 classes continue to be leaded by French mushers, respectively Elodie Darras and Alain Diffort, who both increased the gap with their direct competitors, Claudio De Ferrari (I) and Florian Thevoz (CH).
In C1 class, Christophe Sudan (CH), continues to lead this class in front of Filippo Piccinini (I). In C2, Three French mushers are leading the class with Anthony Coffre (Junior) being to day again the fastest with his three Greenland dogs.
Another French junior, Jason Fournier leads the D1 class but he is now folowed by another French musher, Marc Joguet who passed Rinaldo Marioli (I) but the time difference is now of only 1 minute.
In D2 Lionel Eich (F) has passed the other French Jean Michel Hoog, both with Malamutes.
Tomorrow, the finals will be quite exciting as, with such tough trails, nothing is done yet.
But what a beautiful championship, with all mushers being happy (or too tired to complain, lol).
And once again many thanks to the Swiss club CSCPT and the city and community of Gryon for such a perfect organisation and warm welcome.