X-Trail Altay Expedition
Young Guns In China
Press Release / 31.05.2017
The Xtrail race will be a landmark for the young teams with the event organizer providing entry and travel for a huge number of "young gun" teams. This will see some very fast and experienced beyond their years competitors take on the well established names. Are they excited. Very excited plus some and some more. Here are some feelings from several of those teams. We will catch up with more of them at the race. One team even has a Mandarin speaker - a possible advantage.
Terra Adventure-Finalin - by Joaquin Lopez. Recent winners of Huairasinchi Ecuador 2017.
Racing in such a remote place on earth like Altay region is just a dream for any adventure racer. It is a huge and unknown playground for us to enjoy nature as its finest! We are really excited to race amongst the best teams of the world to learn from their experience. That’s the good thing about Adventure Racing, you can play on the same field of the greatest legends. If this would be football we will be playing against Messi.
With such a strong field of teams the top three will be very unpredictable and is hard to guess. I think Seagate, Silva will be the likely frontrunners. The news of being on the course with other 9 young teams has made us very happy! It definitely will give a fresh air to Adventure Racing. We want to get more young people interested in our sport to make it live long so I am very thankful with XTRAIL Race for giving all of us this opportunity to prove that we can also succeed at this crazy long events. I am sure the race between the young teams will be very fun to watch!
Koala-Bear Hunt - by Tom Brazier. A new team full of boundless enthusiasm.
I'm excited that the youth teams will have amazing exposure and connection with the elites teams before/after the race while we're hanging out at HQ. I know Sneaky Weasel gang are very solid but some of the other youth teams are pretty inexperienced, so it will be fun to learn and laugh together.
I've never been to China, and I'm excited to experience the remoteness gradient as we transition from international airports and smog to remote villages with yurts and untouched wilderness! It will be fun to see the gaps between what we assume constitutes an adventure race and logistics in Australia vs. in another very different country. Luckily my teammate Owen speaks Mandarin, and lived in NW China for a year, so that should help us adapt.
Top three teams prediction - it's hard to go past Seagate. Maybe Columbia Vidaraid will manage to do the whole race without any sleep after their efforts at XPD World Champs last year!
@bear hunt adventure
Sneaky Weasel Gang - by Isla Smith. Isla is young but brilliant. She has previously raced to victory with Seagate.
I think I can speak for the rest of the team when I say that The Sneaky Weasel Gang are all pretty excited to be heading to China to race at Xtrail. We are building up to the ARWS World Champs Cowboy Tough in August 2017 and this should be the perfect preparation – sure beats training in the NZ winter!
We’re excited to be heading to what looks like a beautiful and remote part of the world to race and experience the local culture, hang out with a few yaks and sample some noodles! As always, adventure racing is a great opportunity to combine our passions of racing hard and seeing a bit of the world in one go.
Top picks would have to be fellow Kiwis Team Seagate, Haglofs Silva and Colombia Vidaraid should be strong also. But who knows, racing in a foreign country is a good leveler and we’d like to think we will be in the mix, building on a good outing at GODZone.
As one of the youth teams selected to race we are incredibly grateful of the support from the Xtrail organization and ARWS to have this opportunity. We can’t wait get over there and get amongst it!
https://www.facebook.com/sneakyweaselgang/
Images Kirsten Oliver Photography, Huairasinchi Ecuador and Tom Brazier.
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