Well, the end of the Vendée Globe race was not exactly a photo finish. But after sailing 27,600 miles around the world alone on a boat for 78 days, the two top sailors came in... three hours apart!
François Gabart, the 29-year-old "blond angel," held his arms out wide to greet the fireworks that welcomed him back to the Sables d'Olonne, where the racers left on November 10th. Since that time, the sailing race took its competitors past the Cape of Good Hope, going south of Australia and New Zealand and across the Pacific to dangerous Cape Horn, then home across the Atlantic. Eight of the 20 boats that set out had to put into port and not finish the race because of various problems. Gabart is the youngest winner yet. And like all the others, he is French.
"I didn't think I had that much energy," Gabart said in his barefoot press conference after the race. "You have to have a lot of strength to do the Vendée Globe. If you don't, it's torture, a punishment." And he thanked, several times, his runner-up, Armel Le Cléac'h, who came in second ... for the second time.
