X-Trail Altay Expedition
World Series Adventure Racing Begins in China
Rob Howard / 04.06.2017
The Altay Expedition Race in Northern China is about to begin and the new race has attracted some of the world’s top teams to the border area with Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.
That’s not a surprise as the race is now a part of the AR World Series, the only qualifier in Asia, and offers bigger prize money than any other event. It’s a wonderful and exotic place to race as well and last year’s demonstration event illustrated this, as well as showing how capable the organisation was. (That too is no surprise as Race Director Wei Jun was the principal planner of international races organised under state auspices by the Chinese Mountaineering Assoc. for many years.)
In fact with the prize money and with 8 invited youth teams in the field it is a surprise to see only 24 teams on the start line. (However there are a lot of other big races happening around the same time, including Raid in France, another World Series event.)
Last year’s race was won by the Thule team after a nail-biting finish where major navigational mistakes were a deciding factor. That event had a fast start and looked for a while as though the course might not be challenging enough for the high standard of teams, but teams soon slowed and one thing we can learn from it is that navigation, especially given the poor quality maps, and at night, can be very difficult.
The course this year is 488.5km long, with 12 legs over 5 days of racing and the winners are expected in 65-75 hours. It will once again start at Kanas Lake resort, and will be a linear course finishing in the city of Altay as it did last year. Both the prologue and ropes stages have been dropped, but there is a short white water rafting stage, an orienteering stage and a ‘mystery challenge’. (Last year it was cooking noodles with a local family.)
The teams will take part in the opening ceremony tomorrow morning at Kanas before the starts at 11.00am with a short run, followed by the first kayaking stage and then the rafting.
The favourites will be the big hitters on the AR World Series rankings with world #1 Seagate sure to be hard to beat. Their team this time out is Stuart Lynch and Chris Forne, with Jo Williams (who won their last world title with them) and Bob McLachlan (usually of Team Torpedo 7). The latter two raced in China last year.
World #2 ranked team Columbia Vidaraid will be trying once again to beat them and are joined by Julia Crytzer of the USA for the first time, and the other top ranked contenders will most likely be Estonian ACE Adventure and Haglofs Silva.
Both were in China last year with the Swedish team finishing second after losing the lead with a heart breaking navigation error just before the finish line.
It’s a return to expedition racing for Bjorn Rydvall after his diabetes diagnosis, which is great to see, and the team are joined by Australian navigator Rob Preston who usually races with Adventure Medical Kits. (Having at least two strong navigators could be significant in this race.) The Estonians will be especially keen to avoid any race penalties for infringements after a series of recent run-ins with rules and referees.
Some of the invited youth teams are tackling their first expedition adventure race, but others are much more experienced and could well be looking to upset the established order. Particularly the two kiwi teams, Greenhorns and Sneaky Weasel Gang, who have impressive Godzone experience and results behind them, and given this chance to travel to an international race could show how deep the talent pool in New Zealand is.
The race will have live tracking (with YB Satellite trackers) and you can follow the live site at http://live.arworldseries.com/xtrail17/index-en.htm. It will be a fascinating race to follow.
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