Silk Road Mountain Race leader James Hayden has been left considering whether to continue with the event after being the victim of an attempted highway robbery by two men on horseback.
The ultra-endurance athlete confirmed the news today on his Twitter page that he had managed to escape an attempted robbery while racing across the Kadzi-Saz area of Kyrgyzstan.
A tweet from Hayden's account wrote 'While climbing the Kadzi-Saz canyon section of the route, James was stopped by two horse back riders with dogs. Without going into details, quickly James realised the situation was not friendly and things escalated fast into an attempted robbery,'
'James was eventually able to get away from the two horse riders by descending back the way he came. The incident has left James a bit shaken, he will take some time to consider next steps. This is sadly an isolated incident in what is a wonderful country.'
The former Transcontinental champion had been leading the multi-day endurance race by 100km from Lael Wilcox and Jakub Silacan but is now assessing his situation with an official race car outside the small village of Barskoon.
The unfortunate incident, rare as it is, does highlight the multiple risks associated with this tough race.
Taking place in Kyrgyzstan, the Silk Mountain Road Race is a completely self-supported, fixed-route race of 1,700km mainly off-road.
We will update this story with further news as we get it.