Eco Challenge 2000,Sabah, Borneo - a report by James Henderson

James Henderson, of 7th placed Team Schroders, tells the story of the race.

Even by its own standards--of setting some of the most demanding race courses around the world--Eco-Challenge 2000 was extreme. Certainly it was the toughest since British Columbia, Canada in 1996, perhaps ever. The environment, the heat of the Borneo jungles, was to blame. Eco-Challenge 2000 was long, hot, sweaty, grinding and brutal on the feet. And the field was more competitive than ever, with most of the world's best teams there. The front of the race proceeded at a run much of the time, even into the final days.

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Of the 76 teams from 26 countries there were five from the UK and a cross-border Irish team. It's an expensive business, this, but most had managed some sponsorship or kit assistance, from the North Face in one case and in another from their own company, Targus. We competed as Team Schroders (two team-members work for Schroders Bank), with kit assistance from Giant bikes and Hi-Tec.

The disciplines in races like these are chosen specifically to fit local terrain and traditions. Sabah 2000 made very successful use of local 'perahu' outrigger canoes-the start saw a small fleet of colourful sails set out from Semporna, a former piracy capital on Sabah's eastern shores. Paddling and sailing, we made our way through a 90km series of island checkpoints, dropping off pairs of runners for navigation exercises.

At the coast we reached first transition area and transferred onto mountain bikes, making our way into the rainforest heartland of the island, into the spectacularly beautiful Danum Valley. As you would expect, it was a long, hard 80km haul, made into a mudfest for later teams by a rainstorm.

With the rainforest the pace slowed to a walk and the full horrors and beauty of the race set in. The heat was close and grappling, like the barbed vines and undergrowth of the jungle, and the going was steep and slippery. Of course, in the right light-when it fell diagonally through the canopy 200 feet above-the forest looks wonderful. Stopping was impossible, though. Immediately you sit down the forest is on the move, with wasps, ants and of course leeches, all out to get you. We were able to take a little time to recover in the oasis of a beautiful rainforest lodge.

Next was a river swim, innovative but faintly dangerous as we were caught in whirlpools and washed over a main rapid smack into a submerged rock. Luckily, nobody was badly injured. And then began the river canoeing in the wooden 'sampans' -- heavy and hard to manoeuvre but nearly indestructible. Luckily. We weren't the only ones to test them out, either. One team got theirs stuck across the flow, basically blocking the river. It was still there two days later, collecting water, largely undisturbed.

The race course was mostly a success, but there were some links that didn't really 'flow' and where we felt that we were merely linking interesting sections. The worst was the 'Death March' (named so by Team Aussie Pride after a WW2 episode in which many Australian soldiers were literally marched to death). We backtracked along some of the course through the blinding heat of the palm oil plantations.

But then we were back in the perahus again, with another 100km of sailing and paddling. Along the way there were some stops for scuba and rock climbing. At a sunbaked limestone outcrop called Madai (where they collect swiftlet nests for birds' nest soup), there was a small section of caving followed by an ascent on rattan ladders and then a brutal vertical ascent. It was incredibly hot in the caves, but that wasn't the end of it. Then came the ridgewalk from hell, baking in the tropical sun (39 degrees) and brittle underfoot. The abseil, 400ft, was simply massive.

For the last 24 hours, teams were teased by delirium from lack of sleep and storms on the open ocean, but it was just a matter of hanging on. The final run back into Semporna was a merciless haul against wind and tide, but teams were going like Hawaii 5 0 and by then they didn't care.

Sabah was not as pretty as Argentina nor as testing navigationally as Morocco, but it took it's place at the top for sheer, brute physicality, wear and tear on the body and mind. Several very experienced teams, including the defending Kiwi champions, were defeated by it. It was a good hard race and certainly one for the memory bank.

Of the 76 starters, 44 teams finished. The winners were American team Salomon Eco-Internet (just over 6 days), 2nd were French team Spie, 3rd Aussie Pride. Only two British team s finished sadly--Team Schroders placed 7th and Worldview 44th (the Irish, North-South placed 27th). The others (Targus, Turbo, North Face) were counted out, mostly due to injury, but elements joined together and managed to complete the course aswell.

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