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Raid World Champs Qualifiers

Rob / 06.09.2004

After the 4th and final X-adventure Raid of the year the qualifying places for the Raid World Championships in Argentina at the end of November have been decided. Some teams were good enough to race once, score well and qualify, while others have traveled to 4 continents and failed to get enough points to win a ticket to Argentina. Some in weaker zones go through with only a few points, while others in tough zones raced hard, scored highly and still missed out.

The final outcome is a race with most of the world’s top teams on the start list, but lining up alongside them will be some teams inexperienced at an international level who now have the opportunity to race thanks to the zonal qualifying.

The 7 day, non-stop, Raid World Championships will be a very different competition to the fast and furious pace of the weekend qualifiers, which have a stage race format. So qualifying performance may not be the best guide to the final outcome, but here’s a breakdown of how the qualification worked out in each zone:

Zone I: Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland - 4 places

Scandinavian teams have been very competitive this year and in the recent World Championship race in Newfoundland Cross Sportswear (formerly Human Link) were only seconds behind winners Nike ACG/Balance Bar. They’ll renew that rivalry in Argentina, but Reebok Adventure, who were 5th in the same race, and are one of the most experienced ‘big race’ teams around failed to qualify. They place 5th in the zone after only posting one result.

1 MULTITUDE SAAB SALOMON (Norway) - 110 pts
2 FJS (Sweden) – 108 pts
3 NOKIA ADVENTURE (Finland) - 95 pts
4 CROSS SPORTSWEAR (Sweden) – 81 pts

8 teams from 4 countries took part in this zone.

Zone II: U.K., Ireland - 2 places

Saab Salomon start every race as one of the favorites and though they have not made a podium finish this year they’ve scored consistently and are one of the few teams to have raced all 4 qualifiers. In contrast Event Endure have the lowest points score of all the qualifiers, having raced only once to qualify. However, they are a very experienced team who will prefer the longer, expedition format of the Final.

1 SAAB SALOMON (GBR) – 141 pts
2 EVENT ENDURE (GBR) – 12 pts

2 teams from 1 country took part in this zone.