McCormack rules in the Atlas Mountains

Britain's Alex McCormack won the ultra-distance bike event, the Atlas Mountain Race, in Morocco after 92 hours when he crossed the finish line at around 13:54 (Moroccan time) yesterday.When McCormack crossed the finish line in Essaquira after 1,304 kilometers, Benedek Borsos of Hungary was in second place, still 35 km from the finish line. Borsos’ finishing time was just over 93 and a half hours.At the time, Namibia's Drikus Coetzee was placed third with 1,197 km completed, with Kevin Benkenstein (fourth; 1,195 km) of South Africa a short distance behind him. Both of the two Southern Africans were on course to reach the finish line Anatole Naïmi from Belgium was then in fifth position with 1,183 km behind him.Winning the race in three days 20 hours is “a seriously impressive time, and 15 minutes faster than the last time Telouet was in the race when Robin Gemperle won in 2023, organisers said yesterday. The 27-year-old McCormack is an experienced ultra-competitor who has won various events in the UK.“He pushed the pace aggressively from the start, riding nearly the entire descent off Telouet, even crossing the snowdrifts on the bike. Several members of the media team were on the descent and in awe of his technical prowess,” organisers reporterd.“With a background in cross-country mountain biking, his technical skills have clearly served him well. Outside of racing, Alex is an engineer who has scaled back his work hours this year to focus on racing the full Mountain Races series.“The race has seen dramatic swings in temperature, with below-freezing nights giving way to scorching heat through the desert and along the coast. Alex told us that he typically struggles with the cold, making the sub-zero nights an added challenge, but he managed it well to stay at the front.“At each checkpoint, he was efficient, methodical, and above all else, exceptionally kind to the volunteers.”Daily strugglesThe Atlas Mountain Race started on Friday at 18:00 (Moroccan time) in Marrakesh where Drikus was on the starting line for a second time, with 264 other men and women.A challenge on the first night was the Telouet Pass, with a vertical climbing height of more than 2,500 meters, followed by the descent. McCormack was already the leader at the first control point after 128 km, with Naïmi 17 minutes behind. Robin Gemperle (a previous winner and record holder, from Switzerland) arrived soon after with his countryman Lucas Strittmatter and Sebastian Breuer of Germany.On Saturday, the competition between McCormack, Benedek Borsos and Breuer was merciless. Drikus chose to ride according to his plan, saved his energy levels and did not play along with the leaders. At 06:00 on Sunday, Borsos was the first arrival at the second control point (566 km) at Asseragh. However, Breuer had to withdraw from the race there when he became unwell.On Monday morning, Drikus started to overtake some of the the leaders, specifically Borsos who was ahead of him. Drikus struggled with the freezing temperatures earlier in the race, but as the mercury rose, the conditions began to suit him better. After the third control point (878 km), the riders had to cross the Atlas Mountains a second time with a vertical climbing height of more than 4,000 metres to be completed.After Drikus, the next Namibians in the race are Pierre Lambert, who was in 20th position at the time of going to print yesterday, with 1,022 km of the race behind him, and Nabil Robiati, the Italian Namibian, with 709 km.Drikus made his Atlas Mountain Race debut last year, when flooding forced organisers to resort to an early detour which pushed to total distance to 1,350 km. Chasing hard after Lithuania’s impressive race leader Justinas Leveika, the Namibian was forced to withdraw lees than 60 km from the finish line due to dehydration, exhaustion and hallucination due to a lack of sleep.– tielman@nsh.com.na

McCormack rules in the Atlas Mountains

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McCormack rules in the Atlas Mountains

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