Adventure Race Croatia
Adventure Race Croatia – The Hottest Ticket in Adventure Racing
Press Release / 15.12.2019
Adventure Race Croatia has proved to be the most popular European adventure race. How do we know? This November, it sold out in less than an hour and teams from all around the world will head for the start in the north of Adriatic next May.
The five day event will unfold in the regions of Kvarner and Gorski Kotar from the 18th - 23rd of May 2020. Thirty teams secured their spot by playing the registration race well while another ten teams were accepted after receiving a wild card from the organizer.
Since the goal was to have a strong race with teams from all over the world, nationality and ARWS ranking both played a major role in the wild card decision-making. As a result, teams from six continents and twenty countries, and athletes from twenty-six countries will make up a solid start line in Croatia, missing only a penguin from Antarctica to make this a fully global event!
“Having so many people interested in this race is the biggest compliment we could get and makes all the months of preparations and hard work absolutely worth it. We are happy to present the Croatian wilderness and our culture to such a diverse field of racers, but even happier to see the local scene finally getting in.
“We had only one local team in last two editions but four Croatian teams are racing the next one.” says ARC race director Igor Dorotić. “The terrain of Kvarner and Gorski kotar has a lot to offer and I’m excited to see how the racers of different skills and power will attack it. Our goal is always to create a quality playground for the fastest teams but also to enable a full adventure for the slower teams, which is never an easy job.”
Four teams from the current top ten ARWS ranking: - 400 Team of France, Estonian Ace Adventure, Czech Black Hill/ Salomon and Blizzard from Russia - will be followed by the last two ARC edition winners, Swedish team USWE and Ertips of France.
2018 winning captain Samuel Hurbert says: “ERTIPS is coming back to ARC 2020 for many reasons. We have a very nice souvenir from the first edition in 2018 and we promised Igor to come back. We really appreciate Igor’s team and the way they organise the race so we immediately liked the ARC concept and the way it enables us to discover Croatia.
“Also 72 hours as a winning time is enough since everything above that is too long to recover with our jobs. Croatia is a nice country not so far from where we live in France and we can reach it by car. We do not understand why adventure racers, normally nature friendly, still take so many flights to race for their leisure.
“Our goals are to have a nice holiday week and although we won the first edition, we would still be happy if we join the top 5 as many strong teams are participating this year. Of course, ERTIPS aims at struggling for success, so we will do our best!”
Jacob Westerberg, the captain of this year's winners USWE (Sweden) said, "We had a great time in Croatia in 2019 and are looking forward to coming back and improve our performance. We expect some high intensity racing in beautiful and challenging terrain. We also know that the race will have smooth logistics, meaning everything from transfer busses to food and accommodation before and after the race will be managed perfectly from the organization.
"I personally think the 3 days races are the best for ARWS. You can race at high speed and can squeeze everything in during one week. As we are all quite busy, this is appreciated and makes it easy to choose this race for us. You’ll get beautiful and challenging terrain, 3-4 days of high intense racing, smooth logistics and just one week away from home.
"Our goal for 2020 is to beat the RD estimated time. We failed on this in 2019, not by much, but we did, and as a 2nd priority we will try to defend our title."
The day ARC 2019 finished, Igor jumped straight into creating a 2020 course since the next race was happening only eight months later. After almost three months out in the field the course has taken shape. From now on it’s time only for polishing.
Course details will remain a secret but to those who have already raced in Croatia, this new edition will be quite a different experience with some of the same technical terrain. Those who are coming for the first time, are in for a treat with breathtaking views, beautiful wilderness and the best this area has to offer. The race will consist of more legs than the average adventure racer is used to (the same as last year) so keep in mind that ARC volunteers are not afraid of complicated logistics and sleepless nights if it means a better experience for the teams.
The ARC 2020 base will be on the island of Lošinj in the Punta Vitality Hotel which will give racers some time to indulge in peace and comfort before they experience the wilderness hiding behind the corner.
Also, in partnership with The Croatian National Tourist Board the 2019 “Adventure Race Croatia” movie is coming out in the next ten days so be ready to relive the adventure online and on televisions around the world.
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