Gerard Nijboer, Dutch Olympic silver medallist marathon 1980 and European Champion marathon, has arrived about one hour ago, while I was competing with my machine to post the lap recordings. The Dutch federation is obviously very interested in the development of the ultramarathon more and more in the Netherlands.
However, our Dutch best woman, Ria Buiten had some problems, but she is still in the race now. Also Wim Epskamp -who performed so well last year during the EC 24 hours in Uden- has some problems. lets hope it is al temporary!
Our Frenchman Jean-Pierre Guyoromarc’h is still leading; strong coming man for the moment is Paul Beckers, while Lubomir Hrmo -the 2000 champion- is still controlling the race like last year, now being third. Irina Reutovich started careful, but at present leading clearly the women’s race.
The predictions are ascending slowly, but for women it is already 215K, and for men 232K.
For those staying awake I will give the next intermediate list after abour 11 hours race.
Hope we can find time to give a word to the team managers during the night.
Yours for the moment
Anton Smeets
a.smeets@trouwweb.nl