Skrevet av: Markus Leistad/Transl. SM Arctander
Dato: 11.03.2012 08:19
Four mushers stand out on arrival Levajok as potential winners of this year FL-500: Katy Meier, Ole Wingren, Stein Are Harder and Ole Sigleif Johansen.
FL-500 is carried out as a two part pursuit. To Karasjok it is the musher with the fastest lap time who leads the race, even though he/she is not first on the trail. In Karasjok the time difference is adjusted. After this, the first on the trail is the first in the race.
Katy Meier and Ole Wingren have the fastest time of all. Only 7 minutes divides them. Meier has used a total of 12 hours and 2 minutes from Alta to Levajok, while Wingren has used 12 hours and 9 minutes on the same leg.
Behind Meier and Wingren Harder and Johansen follow. They have used respectively 12 hours and 24 minutes and 12 hours and 25 minutes.
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The mushers are now at Levajok and have done 186 km which is 2/5 of the race. At Levajok most mushers use to take a long rest of about 6 hours. Therefor we may expect the first to leave at 9am.
At the moment all the teams look fresh. Meier and Harder have relatively young dogs, while Wingren and Johansen have more experienced dogs. Wingren, who won FL-500 two years ago, has one dog from the winning team. Johansen, on the other hand, have four dogs from last year winning team, and seems to have predisposed his team well.
Behind the leaders Bente Levorsen has used 12 hours and 35 minutes and Elisabet Edland who has used 13 hours and 4 minutes.
The next leg is on the Tana River and Karasjokka (also a river). Who will be able to keep up their speed in to Karasjok?
