Migration Gravel Race: Baum and Fisher win opening stage in Kenya

Lukas Baum (ORBEA x Leatt x Speed Company) and Annabel Fisher (Café du Cycliste) took the early leads in the Migration Gravel Race on Tuesday, the first of four days across the sun-baked landscape of Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve.

The 2023 Migration Gravel Race is the third edition of the four-day stage race, billed as “the wildest gravel race in the world” and managed by Team AMANI. A total of 109 competitors took to the start line on Tuesday for 143km across dirt trails rough roads and a lengthy water crossing for a stage with 800 metres of elevation gain. 

Baum, locked together with Lachlan Morton, rode all day at the front of the race. Both also raced earlier this year at Cape Epic, Baum taking second with Georg Egger after the German duo won in 2022. Mattia De Marchi, winner of this year’s The Traka 360, took third. 

British rider Fisher, who was third for elite women at UCI Gravel World Series event in Germany, 3Rides, rode solo to victory followed in second by Amity Rockwell. Fisher’s Café du Cycliste teammate Lydia Iglesias Barés finished third.

All three women raced at The Traka, Rockwell winning the 360km event and Iglesias Barés eighth at that distance. Fisher finished fourth in The Traka 200.

One of the pre-race favourites not starting was Jordan Schleck (Team AMANI), who said on social media he was “still recovering from some sort of illness or trauma - the Rhabdomyolysis since Unbound Gravel”, where he finished 35th in the 200-mile race. He called the Migration Gravel Race one of his favourite events on his race calendar, but opted to rest and make “a top priority” his health rather than a result.

Migration Gravel joined six existing gravel events across Europe and South Africa to form a new circuit in 2023, the Gravel Earth Series. Along with The Traka, riders at Migration Gravel will score “Earth 3 category” points, the highest on offer, for the season-ending tally.