This competition is a little less familiar to the Israeli public, but in the United States the Race Across America or as it is called RAAM for short, is considered one of the largest and most important ultra bike competitions there. It was a competition that was first launched in 1982 with only four participants and after a decade was also added from the end of messengers, which made it much more popular and accessible to the community of riders who wanted to compete in groups of two, four or eight riders. The race that year was launched from Santa Monica and ended at the Empire State Building in Manhattan, New York, with the winner of the competition finishing it in 9 days and 20:02 hrs.
לאה גולדשטיין. מנצחת ה-RAAM השנה | צילום: באדיבות לאה גולדשטיין
The "Cross-America" route moves over the years from the west coast to the east coast and amounts to no less than 3,000 miles (4,800 km) with a cumulative climb of 175,000 feet. Maryland. But the history of the 2021 edition was made by rider Leah Goldstein, after winning a race that ended Tuesday night and came in first place overall after 11 days and 3:03 hours. It happened that a woman won this competition, she already led the competition after 1,900 km, with the competitor who was in second place 30 km behind her.
Goldstein, 52, was born in Vancouver, Canada and immigrated to Israel when she was a child and lived with her parents in Israel for nine years. Her acquaintance with this competition was already ten years ago, after winning the women and offsetting 12 hours from the previous record. Behind her are dozens of competitions in which she participated as an elite rider in the United States and here in Israel she was also the Israeli champion in road riding and sledding in 2007-2009, the Israeli champion in duathlon in addition also won when she was only 17 at the World Kickboxing Championships.
