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Monday, April 17, 2000 After dominating the second edition of the Elf Authentic Adventure for two and a half days, Team Spie Pharmanex was finally unseated as the race leader today when French rivals, Team FujiFilm, overtook the race lead on Monday afternoon. Riding horses through the dense forest for the second straight day, teams did whatever necessary to keep their horses moving. For Spie Pharmanex, that meant taking it easy on the horses, or so said team member Cathy Sassin. According to Sassin, the team wanted to be sure their horses would make it to today's final equestrian checkpoint and thus opted for a longer — yet cooler and softer — route from checkpoint seven to eight.
Whether the creative routing truly was intentional or not, the result was Team Spie Pharmanex dropped from 1st to 6th place within one checkpoint — questionable strategy to many. Regardless, Sassin emphasized that the race is still young and that anything can happen. Team FujiFilm, who had been shadowing Spie Pharmanex for days, found themselves at CP8 and in the lead for the first time. According to Race Director Gerard Fusil, no one was more surprised than FujiFilm to be leading. When an additional four teams arrived — all still ahead of Spie Pharmanex — the entire profile of the race was changed. Team Paul Vatine is now in 2nd, with Airwave, Ford Raca Forte and EMA Brazil next up. All four teams showed up at CP8, the final checkpoint of the day, to rest their horses and prepare for one last leg on the tiring steeds. As rains fell in the afternoon, teams also learned of the new course routing at CP9. Where CP9 was originally the start of a river crossing on horseback, organizers will respond to the widespread high rivers by gathering horses on the shore and sending competitors across the river solo, while the team's equipment takes a tyrolean traverse across the waters.
The weather has been consistently inconsistent here in Brazil, each day bringing heavy showers followed by warm sunshine and high humidity with temperatures around 100 degrees. Now that the heavily regulated horse section is coming to a close — along with all but one dark zone — the racing will truly begin on Tuesday as teams are let loose to go as fast as they can in this South American heat.
—Elf Authentic Adventure Correspondent
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