With the Adventure Racing World Championships (ARWC) now just three months away, the planet’s best off-road multisport athletes are running out of chances to book their place in the sport’s biggest annual event, due to take place in Burnie, Tasmania, in October/November 2011.
In the last few weeks two additional names were added to the illustrious list of teams who are currently locked in to be on the starting line when the ARWC kicks off, when international qualifying events were run and won in Switzerland and Costa Rica.
Spain’s Columbia Spot team recently took out the 2011 Costa Rica Adventure Race when they crossed the finish line at the Hotel Almendros y Corales in Playa Manzanillo after prevailing in an intense battle with fellow Iberians, Thermocool Buff.
After negotiating the final stage – which included a 12km trek and a 27km mountain bike ride between Playa Negra and Playa Gandoca – Columbia Spot finished the 800km race with a total time of 82 hours and 30 minutes.
Difficult sea conditions and darkness meant some teams were prevented from completing the kayaking stage, which led to their times being neutralized and opened up a real scrap for third place, with home team Gropo Orosi Costa Rica eventually completing the podium.
And previously, in the alpine adventure-playground surrounds of Interlaken in Switzerland, team Silva Gerber Adventure (whose ranks now include ex-pat Kiwi Aaron Prince) won the APEX event, and promptly booked themselves a ticket to Tasmania. The race – which featured total elevation gain of around 15,000 meters – took place under the eye of the Eiger in the Jungfrau region of the viciously vertiginous country, and in the second half of the race, which took place at altitude, the weather gods turned against racers, serving them up a bitter cocktail of constant wind, rain, and snow.
The dramatic stages of APEX included an ascent of the iconic 2973-metre Schilthorn (which only 17 of the 28 teams that started it managed to complete) and the final leg saw one racer from each team paraglide into Interlaken while their mates ran down the mountain. The race turned into a close two-way shootout between Silva Gerber and R’Adys Black Diamond and at the end of day three, less than 30 minutes separated them. The Swedes pushed through instead of sleeping at the last transition point, however, and secured an impressive four-hour victory margin. They’d only slept for 1 hour 40 minutes during the entire event.
TheAPEX race was a first-time event as an ARWC qualifier while it was Costa Rica’s second year. Both have been deemed huge successes, with the natural attributes and variety or terrain proving challenging but popular with participants.
“Interlaken is the perfect venue for an event like the APEX Race, both for the breathtaking natural environments and for the great adventure culture that exists here,” said race director Staffan Källbäck. “The community is very supportive towards the event and our aim is to stay in Berner Oberland for several years, since there is still many gorgeous places to showcase and cool adventures to be experienced.”
With their wins in South America and Europe, Silva Gerber Adventure and Columbia Spot have confirmed themselves a place at the ARWC, joining such international talent as reigning World Champions, Spanish/French team Buff Thermocool; 2009 World Champions, British team adidas TERREX; elite Swedish outfit Team Thule; and, of course, Australia’s own Team Blackheart.
Team Blackheart booked their place by winning last year’s XPD, an ARWC-qualifying event they have comprehensively stamped their authority on over the last few years, but they’ve also proved themselves to be in top fighting form more recently, by taking out Australia’s toughest two-day adventure race, GeoQuest.
GeoQuest 2011 was seen by many teams from Australia and New Zealand as, if not quite a dress rehearsal for the World Champs, at least their last chance to test themselves as a team in a competitive adventure race before taking on the world.
And if it was adversity they sought in order to test their combined reserves of resilience, strength and cohesion under pressure, then it was adversity they got…in bucketloads. Just three teams out of 45 starters finished the full course, which was abandoned after 30 hours when bad weather conditions turned potentially deadly on the mid New South Wales coast in June.
And at the end of it all, it was no huge surprise to see that Team Blackheart were not only one of those finishers, but that they were standing atop the podium. The result was a reminder, if one was needed, that this crew – comprised of Kim Willocks, Damon Goerke, Rob Preston and Josh Street – are serious contenders on any stage, local or international, in any conditions.
And besides his team dominating the domestic field in multi-day AR, Blackheart’s Damon Goerke has been stamping his authority on several international trail-running ultras, following up a win in the Namib Desert Challenge, with a fastest Australian runner home at the TNF100, and then going on to nail the Gobi Desert footrace in July.
Of course not all the teams taking part in the AR World Championships are packed with semi-professional adventure athletes, and not all have won their competitor’s number plates. Many have paid for their place on the starting line not simply with sweat and blood (although they’ve all handed over plenty of that too – and it hasn’t even started yet.
New Zealand’s Girls on Top are one such outfit. The girls have a rogue male in their midst for the World Championships this year, Craig Stevens, partly because of expedience but also because it’s very lonely being the solitary all-female team on the results page.
“We kicked off our team training and team building at GeoQuest, however all of us have been working away quietly at our individual training programmes,” says leader Debbie Chambers. “Anne, Craig and I did a 16-hour run/walk around Mount Ruapehu in the central North Island of New Zealand about a month ago, and Anne and I also completed the North Face 100 in an attempt to speed up our trekking times. Ally has been exploring the hills and beer halls of Europe and Craig has been doing secret training with some of the World’s best athletes.”
As shown by Switzerland’s R’Adys Black Diamond – who have two novice expedition racers in their midst and who managed to push veteran racers Silva Gerber right to the edge of the APEX recently – it isn’t inconceivable that one of these teams will upset the applecart in the Apple Isle, pulling a place on the podium out of the rookie hat. For beneath that hat are some weighty names in the AR game, and several more experienced and accomplished adventure racers are yet to declare whether they’ll be joining a team for one last crack at world dominance.
As Debbie Chambers says: “There are some gems coming out of the woodwork for this event… It will be a cracker.”
But these gems had better declare their intentions very soon, however, and as for all those elite teams still hoping to win a golden ticket to adventure racing’s chocolate factory, well they only have three chances left. With the Swiss APEX done and dusted, all adventurous eyes will be turned towards Canada, where Raid the North will kick off on 22 July, before flitting back to Europe for the Raid In France in August 2011 the finally to Gold Rush Mother Lode in the USA in September. And then it’s game on. All places will have been decided, and the count down to the World Championships will begin in earnest.
And so the question is: who is going to be left standing when the music stops?
Source: Pat Kinsella / AR World Series
