1st Manche - Friday 24 Febryary 2012

Today, Friday we have had a fantastic sunny day. The place is really beautiful and all musher agreed that they have been racing on some of the most beautiful trails in Europe.
The weather was sunny but a little bit hot, with a max temperature of 8°C, but that cause no injury or problem to any dog.
Due to the splendid alpine environment, all trails were quite tough but also extremely attractive and all mushers enjoyed them.
However it was a real tough and selective championships with the level difference of 900 m for small teams and up to 1900 m for long teams and longtrailers.
In Middle distance we have had a really spectacular race. In SJ2, the nice Czech lady Zdenka Duskova wins the first heat, while our Slovak Champion, Roman Reistetter leads the Skj 1dog class.
IThe O class is leaded by Jean Combazard (F) closely followed by an excellent Spanish musher, Baltasar Gallardo.The Swiss Egli, an astonishing musher, leads the A class, while the B1 and B2 classes are leaded by French mushers, respectively Elodie Darras and Alain Diffort.
In C1 class, another Swiss musher was flying over the snow, Christophe Sudan, leading t
his class in front of Filippo Piccinini the 2011 European Champion. In C2, Three French mushers are leading the class with Anthony Coffre (Junior) being the fastest.
Another French junior, Jason Fournier leads the D1 class, while in D2 another French Jean Michel Hoog with his Malamutes is first.
Tomorrow will be another beautifull day and we expect a lot of remarkable races in all classes.
Finally for the longtrailers, trails were quite hard but the bivouc place was really nice with fire, wine and "Raclette" (a Swiss specialty), offered by the city of Gryon with anice athmosphere and music.
Tomorrow the continuation of the race and the pictures of the race...
But what a beautiful race and a perfect Swiss organisation.