Nokia win European Championships
Helen Jackson / 06.06.2003
Helen Jackson sent this news on the recent Bimbache Extreme, which declared itself the European Adventure Racing Championship 2003;Bimbache is the name for the first people to inhabit El Hierro Island. What a great discovery. You have heard of Lanzarote and Tenerife well this is a Canary Island with a difference.
Unspoilt by tourists, litter and hotel development, but last week, NOT adventure racers. Twenty five teams of four ran, mountain biked and skated around the land, then swam and kayaked in the cool blue waters of it’s coast. The island is basically one mountain of over 1500m, offering endless wonderful, panoramic views, especially from the abseils from sea cliffs and from the volcanic mountain sides. Over night camp was at a wonderful little forestry set up, the most idyllic spot with the feel of the presence wild grizzly bears.
The Island lies on the meridian line so shares the same time zone as the UK, but being a few thousand miles south, there is quite a few hours less light.
More or less all the organisers and racers met in Madrid on Tuesday 8th May. From the 25 teams 7 of them were local teams from the islands. But also the usuals, Montrail and Elite Adventure (US), Nokia (Finland), Elix (France), and other teams from Holland, Argentina and many from Spain.
Most of these teams were familiar with the format (3 Stages) of 8 hours, 24 hours and 6 hours for the fastest teams. There were periods of rest between stages, generally the remainder of the day after the stage, although within stages time did not stop. The fast teams literally do not stop and the shorter the stage the faster they go. There’s no stopping when there is 14000 Euros at stake.
Antonio De La Rosa was the race director, he set the course and arranged the structure. Neutralisation was incorporated into the stages for the start and finish of the abseils to deal with any time out worries during any rope work or bottlenecks. As a racer himself Antonio got to be on the other side of the debating table when it came to protests. It was clear that he is a top class racer as the course was awesome, and just how racers like it.
Nokia (arguably the best adventure racing team in the world) lead from the start and were closely followed by Ian Adamson’s team, Elite Adventure. That was until his team missed a CP in the night mountain bike section that was only a 3km detour -oops. Team Buff from Spain and Montrail were well in contention for third position and the race was really over after the 24 hour stage, with Elite Adventure’s error resulting in disqualification.
I don’t know how the race was won, as ever it was not by sheer speed. Organisation, skill, compatibility, team work and endurance must all play a part. Nokia just do not stop and are by no means slow. They are extremely well organised and are very experienced, which is why they now hold the titles of World and European Adventure Racing Champions.
Full results and more pictures are on the race web site - see the calendar entry for a link.
[Ed. Helen is now at the Raid Gauloises competing against Nokia.]
