The Hindu : Sport / Racing : Motor : London-Sydney Marathon: Ooty sector cancelled

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

Sport

Sport - Racing : Motor

London-Sydney Marathon: Ooty sector cancelled

By Rayan Rozario

COIMBATORE, JUNE 8. The Udhagamandalam sector of the Indian leg of the London-Sydney Marathon (LSM) has been cancelled because the Australian health inspectors needed an additional day to meet the stringent standards for entry of cars into Australia.

The Event Director of LSM, Nick Brittan, in a communication to Spitfire Motor Sports Private Limited, the organisers of the Indian leg, has said the Australian quarantine officials have doubts about completing the wash and inspection programme within the time available.

"Therefore any car that does not meet the tolerance standard of cleanliness cannot be loaded onto the cargo planes and will have to remain in India.

"We cannot take the risk so we will have to reschedule the cargo and passenger flights to go into Darwin, Australia, instead of Alice Springs. Darwin has full quarantine facilities, while Alice Springs does not."

That means competitors will have to drive 1400km in one day from Darwin to Alice to catch up with the schedule.

In the rescheduled structure there will be no night stop in Udhagamandalam. Instead all cars will drive from Mysore to Kochi, bypassing Udhagamandalam, on June 21.

Their mission will be to set and clean their own cars so that they can be presented to the car wash operation in a pre-cleaned condition thus ensuring that they stand a better chance of passing the quarantine inspection. The organisers were a bit disappointed as the Udhagamandalam sector was the one that involved the maximum effort. "We are disappointed but we understand that the inspection issue is quite serious. We feel sorry for the participants because they would miss seeing the nicer part of India. Also, the roads are very good and a beauty to drive," says Gopinath, Chairman of Spitfire.

The LSM, which was flagged off from London on June 5, has currently entered France and the last three days witnessed some very close competition. Keith Callinan of Australia driving a Holden Monaro was in the lead followed by Jimmy McRae of Great Britain as per the interim overall positions after stage 6.

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