Team « Terres d’Aventure »: a double motivation.

Eric Balian (433 –FR), assistant manager of Terres d’Aventure (a travel agency specialized in foot trecks) and « team leader » for the Sultan Marathon des Sables explains why they all dived in.
“It all started with Patrick Bauer, the head of the race, making a joke when visiting our head office: “You are historical partners of the MDS, why don’t you put up a team for our 25th anniversary ?”It is our job to get people to walk into the desert. We were instantly enthusiastic. Beyond our link with the event, or rather thanks to it, we share the core values of this adventure race: a taste for sport effort and team spirit, but also environment care, solidarity and assistance to local populations. Our Grenoble office manager, Michel Millard, knows the Sahara very well and is actually in charge of the local treatment of all garbage on the Sultan MDS with his incinerator van.”

The team is made of ten runners come from very different backgrounds. Besides Eric Balian, we have Charles Polidori (439 –FR), Terres d’Aventure office manager in Marseille, Eric Najman (435 –FR), who works in the Lille office, Eric Christin (437 –FR) production manager for East and Southern and most of all Mohamed Farag (436 –MOR) , a chef for « Maroc sur Mesure », that belongs to the same company. There’s also Pierre-Etienne Léonard (432 –FR), a journalist for France Télévision, and Terres d’Aventure clients: Philippe Oriot (434 –FR), Gilles Bohbot (438 –FR), Dominique Barbier (440 – FR) and Benoît Pelier (441 – FR).

The team pulled together through collective training based on solidarity and good humour. Philippe Oriot was the only one to pull out yesterday at the first check point, a victim to injuries on both his feet. Many of the others are also injured or exhausted; they run at their own pace. As a result, team Terres d’Aventure is named on all pages of the ranking. And even feature amongst the elite thanks to Mohammed Farag’s excellent performance: he is currently 31st in the general ranking.