For the third consecutive year, Team Eider/Mercantour, captained by Sylvain Mougin, winner of the famous “Raid Gauloise” in 2002, has taken out this the sixth edition of the Boliviana. With exemplary consistency, the team comfortably settled into second place right from the first stage and had taken the lead by the fourth.
It was in the heart of the Andes cordillera that this multi-sport raid of humanitarian vocation took place over the 9th to the 20th November at between 3500 and 5700 metres altitude. It was the sixth edition of a race that beyond the physical challenge has over the years revealed itself as a great human adventure. The twenty teams enrolled in the Boliviana participate both in a sporting and humanitarian raid. Each team carries provisions that are directly distributed in the villages through which the event passes. Similarly, the organisers of the event set aside part of the registration fees for the purchase of various presents that are also distributed to families. On the sporting side of things, Boliviana 2006 was five stages covering five disciplines (trekking, run and bike, mountain bike, rope workshops and orienteering) over a 300-kilometre course.
The start for Boliviana 2006 was set for Monday November 13 2006 at Copacabana, on the banks of the Titicaca lake. The athletes got to the heart of the matter with an orienteering course and a rope workshop at between 3800 and 4200 metres altitude around Copacabana, then some mountain biking and canoe between Copacabana and Yampupata.
The height of the raid would come during the fifth stage, where the Boliviana would offer the most testing challenge of the entire race: runners began with a very steep ascent that would bring them to the foot of Huayna Potosí (at 6088m altitude) where a final rope workshop awaited them. After that, competitors endured one last orienteering course before the event’s final checkpoint.
Once the finish line crossed, the organisers could finally crown the event’s winners.
The schedule:
Monday November 13 2006:
7am – Start of stage
7pm – Evening meal and briefing at the bivouac
Friday November 17 2006:
End of stage 5 at La Paz
An evening of folkloric Peña
Saturday November 18 2006:
Final finishing line of the raid at La Paz
Closing ceremony
1st: EIDER - MERCANTOUR III (France) 20:12:50
2nd: MERCANTOUR I (France) 20:43:50
3rd: PANDORE - CORSICA AUTANTICA (France) 22:18:20
