Haglöfs Åre Extreme Challenge started well for both Mattias and Björn, but that did not last for long…
Sam Clark (NZ) did a sprint start in Tännforsen and continued kayaking with an impressing speed, all by himself. Behind him, a group of 5-6 kayaks formed, including Mattias and Björn. Mattias entered the rapids in front of the group, just behind Daniel Hansson and they made a nice and steady progress. Unfortunately Björn, who was last in the group, got in an incident when a kayaker infront of him went swimming in the white water with his 6.4 m boat blocking the way for Björn. Björn managed not to run in to either the racer nor the boat, but instead found himself bumping into a nasty rock which made a rather big impact on Björn’s ski…
As Mattias and Daniel made a gap to the rest of the group thanks to strong kayaking and quick portages, Björn stopped at the first portage to empty some 10 liters of water out of his ski. For the first time, Björn had forgot to bring anything to repair his boat (not sure if would have worked though) and as the boat was pretty full of water at the 2nd portage again he decided not to try to cross Åresjön…
Mattias reached transition in 2nd place, just ahead of Daniel (who passed in transition). Björn, who had hitchhiked back to Åre with his broken ski had switched from racing to support, ready to cheer Mattias towards the podium, and at the peak, Mattias was in 3rd place, with no one in sight (partly because of a thick fog). Unfortunately, again…
Instead of going north to Huså, Mattias followed the more frequently used trail heading west down to the Ski lift station. Mattias did not realize this before he reached the ski lift some 200 m below the peak, on the wrong side of the mountain…
At this time, it was game over for both of our competitors. By far the least successful race in a very very long time. From this, it can (hopefully) only get better!
