Stage 6 of the Grande Odyssée comprised two legs with an overnight stop at the Polar Base at the Col du Mont Cenis where dogs would sleep in the open and mushers in tents. The climb to the Polar Base was a 60km leg run in the dark.
The race started in the dark and woke to a white-out. After losing nearly 3 minutes on Friday the race leader, Frenchman Jean-Philippe Pontier arrived ahead at the Polar Base. His dog team was in good shape after the first 60km. Daniel Juillaguet also made good time finishing 7 minutes ahead of Rémy Coste. Just 2 minutes behind overall. Coste has invested 100,000 euros in his dog team and luxury "battle bus" and there is a lot riding on a place on the podium.
Conditions for the longer 86km second leg were not much better with a raging Lombarde wind blowing out of Italy. It was a white-out with snow drifts making trail breaking hard work. The conditions seemed to suit Coste and his dogs and he recovered all but 90 seconds lost to Juillaguet the day before. The two men finished about quarter of an hour down on Pontier.
Radak Havrda had some back luck when he had to leave two dogs during the stage. That meant losing nearly half an hour on the leader during the stage and at 40 minutes the gap looks too hard to bridge. Havrda's main worry is now the other mushers breathing down his neck with Coste less than 7 minutes behind and Juillaguet 13 minutes back.
Race tactics in the Grande Odyssée can be very interesting. Mushers have a team of 14 dogs and generally run 10 in each leg, resting 4 dogs. However sometimes they can choose to run just 8 dogs on a stage, they may lose time but this can give them a stronger team for longer stages.
