Guillot & Boisset Split from Thule Adventure Team

Anne-Marie Dunhill / 13.08.2014

"Perhaps the biggest shake up is yet to come. Newly formed Team France, including recently married Miriam Guillot and Jacky Boisset, have qualified for the World Championships in Ecuador. Guillot and Boisset have been the mainstays of the Thule Adventure Team over the last 3 AR World Championships. Their recent 2nd in Untamed New England shows their new team will be a force to be reckoned with later this year."

The above quote from the ARWS July media release was spot on the money as Jacky Boisset and Mimi Guillot announced the scoop to SleepMonsters today that they have left team Thule, effective immediately.

Speaking from their new home in the Canary Islands, Mimi explained the reasons that lead to this dramatic decision.

The two time Adventure Racing World Champions feel that they no longerhave the same objectives as the other members of the Thule team, nor "the same perspective or philosophy", so they wanted their freedom to race under their own terms and conditions and with the teammates of their choice.

Their goal is to remain number one for several more years and in order to do so they are focusing on expedition racing on the ARWS circuit, as well as some shorter races in China ; a country they particularly love racing in and in which there is top prize money.

Their next race in China starts on August 19th, the Wulong Mountain Quest, where they will be racing with Marcel Hagener and Sylvain Montagny under the team name of Raw Adventures/Toread. Soon afterwards they will then be racing with a different line-up for the inaugural Siquian race (Clayton Smith will be replacing Sylvain who has work imperatives in France).

The couple will then be focusing their training on the World Championships to be held in Ecuador : the Huairasinchi race in November. The recently published altitude profile indicates that the altitude will be less of an issue then it has been in past years for international teams but this seemed not to pose the slightest problem for these two who exclaimed how much they had enjoyed racing in Ecuador in the past.

Jacky and Mimi will be racing this years World Champs with an entirely French team, as mentioned above, the same team that raced Untamed NewEngland in June with Sylvain Montagny and Vincent Faillard.

It will be especially interesting to watch them race this year as they are now one hundred percent raw vegan, hence the name Raw Adventures, which is also the name of their newest project, a raw whole food sports retreats in the Canary Islands.

Indeed, their June wedding in Font Romeu, France was entirely raw vegan as they decided to come out of the proverbial closet and introduce all of their family and friends to their raw lifestyle choices. They very kindly invited this SleepMonsters reporter to join in the festivities and beforehand I gleefully painted a picture of a bunch of the worlds best adventure racing athletes in full de-tox mode over the weekend; I merely overlooked that I would be detoxifying as well ! Let’s just say there was a brisk trade in contraband cheese in the parking lot.

With the news of their break from Thule released today, this dynamic young couple are setting off on a new path and will be writing another page in their history. Mimi closed our interview in French by saying that they had been "delighted to be part of the Thule family and proudly wore their colors" as "Thule is a fantastic brand, very involved in extreme sports and a super sponsor.".

Needless to say they are now looking for another high level sponsor as they continue their quest to maintain their title of Adventure Racing World Champions.