Last days before the race were spent in final preparations for the competition. On Sunday representatives of RAAM held inspection of support vehicles. The inspection was held to check the compliance of support vehicles with the technical requirements and rules of the race. Our team has four vehicles: two minivans which will follow Gerald Bauer through the race, MULTISPECTRUM-HYPOXI mobile laboratory in which medical examinations and barotrainings will undergo during athlete’s rest, and motor home in which support team members will relax when they’re not "on duty" and Gerald himself during a rest at night (which is only two hours a day!). At this stage, we haven’t received any comments on this matter.

Final briefing for all participants of the race was held on Monday evening. Teams were reminded about the main rules and the presentation ceremony of the riders took place afterwards. According to the organizers, athletes from 25 countries arrived to the competition this year: many participants from Austria, Switzerland and USA, also a number of athletes from Monaco, Italy, South Korea and even Russia.

Since Saturday trainings on MULTISPECTRUM-HYPOXI barotrainer resumed. Athlete’s cardiovascular system status monitoring using Zephyr Life was also tested. We had final checks of action and behavior in case of unexpected situations with other members of the support team. According to the rules of competition, our car has no right to follow the driver closely; we will use the parallel route ready to help in an emergency, and will meet the group at the points of the short day-rest and longer night-rest.

The race starts tomorrow...