Pentathlon to Rule Adventure Racing ... Who Knew?
Rob Howard / 30.10.2024
The answer is that almost no one in the adventure racing community knows this is being planned.
So what’s all this about? Surely, the idea is nonsense as Pentathlon has no knowledge or expertise in adventure racing, and anyway the International Adventure Racing Association (IARA) is now established and backed by all the active AR countries and associations.
That’s true, but nevertheless at the upcoming UIPM Congress (to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Nov. 16/17th) motion 2.3 listed in Annexure A states the following;
UIPM is the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne, also called World Pentathlon.
It’s the last 3 words, hidden away in an Annex of an incredibly complex 348 page document which should concern all adventure racers. (The full document can be found at https://www.uipmworld.org/uipm-2024-congress-working-document )
The fact that adventure racing is mixed in with a variety of obstacle sports gives a clue to the origin of this unethical behaviour, where an established sports body is prepared to claim control and governance of an independent sport, with no consultation and with almost no one who is active in the sport being aware of their actions!
It is, of course, World Obstacle/FISO behind this and they are trading adventure racing as a pawn in a game of sports politics rooted in Olympic ambition.
However, the motion has not yet been adopted, and there is time to make UIPM see reason. They could take those 3 words out. There is really nothing for them to gain as AR is a niche sport which won’t boost their participation numbers for IOC significantly, while the downside will be the vocal opposition of the sport of adventure racing.
Whether the acceptance of the proposal would actually make much difference to the day to day running of adventure racing is unknown at this point. It could potentially make life more difficult for national adventure racing associations and IARA and potentially have more far reaching implications. Regardless, it is morally wrong.
A merger of FISO/World Obstacle and UIPM is at the root of this and it’s being done to allow the replacement of horse riding with a short obstacle course at Pentathlon events in future Olympics. This is so that the UIPM can keep the International Olympic Committee (IOC) happy and keep their place at the games.
No doubt the IOC is happy to claim involvement of a new sport in the Olympics, and its one which is a lot cheaper than transporting horses around the world. Not all Pentathletes are so happy about the traditional skills of horse riding, which is so deeply rooted in the history of their sport, being cast aside.
Of course, none of this ‘horse trading’ with Pentathlon need involve Adventure Racing at all. It is only because World Obstacle continues to claim adventure racing as an ‘Obstacle Sport’ that those 3 words are in the UIPM motion.
Wasn’t IARA established after the AR community rejected World Obstacle as a governing body? Why is World Obstacle still claiming to represent Adventure Racing?
In 2021 World Obstacle unilaterally announced it was the governing body of adventure racing, with no consultation amongst the wider community or the vast majority of stake holders in the sport (anyone see a pattern here). There were public meetings (after the takeover announcement) and considerable disquiet about World Obstacle’s methods, ethics, finances, and suitability was expressed.
In short, the majority of those in adventure racing didn’t like how FISO had done things and wanted nothing to do with them or Obstacle Sports. (The exception is the Adventure 1 organisation which supports World Obstacle, who in turn sanction their series, but that’s a topic for another day.)
An independent consultation process was established after the public meetings by the ‘AR Working Countries Group’, with the aim to reach out to ALL active AR organisations around the world and establish a genuine consensus on how to move forward. AR organisations in 30 countries were involved.
Options for the future governance of AR were then put to them, including accepting World Obstacle. Other options were to have no governing body at all (status quo), to seek to join Orienteering or Triathlon governing bodies, or to set up a new AR specific organisation.
The overwhelming vote was for a new independent organisation and IARA was established and has spent the last year putting in place the building blocks for the future. It’s a slow process, but they are now completing the membership validation of the various AR national governing bodies around the world and will announce more on this very shortly.
World Obstacle President Ian Adamson said at the public meetings that FISO would accept the decisions made by the AR community and after concluding the consultation IARA met with him to ask World Obstacle to withdraw any claim to adventure racing and remove it from their website.
Further letters have been sent by IARA to both World Obstacle and UIPM, but World Obstacle has not complied and continues to make the false claim of being adventure racing’s governing body.
IARA will make a statement on this situation very shortly and we’ll have more news soon of a campaign against the move by UIPM to include adventure racing under their governance as an Obstacle Sport.
That last phrase is so absurd, it is almost beyond belief ... but you’d better believe it and be ready to do something about it.
The first step is to make sure everyone in the wider AR community knows this is happening in a few weeks time, so please share this article with all your adventure racing contacts, and watch this space for more news.
More Information
This is the website of the UIPM - https://www.uipmworld.org/obstacle
You can see on this page they already include adventure racing as a Pentathlon/Obstacle Sport.
For more information on World Obstacle see https://worldobstacle.org/
You can read about the work of IARA at https://internationaladventureracing.com/inside-iara/q-a-with-iara/ (The page has a detailed history of how IARA came about and information on the actions of World Obstacle relating to adventure racing.)
The IARA membership process is outlined here https://internationaladventureracing.com/membership-process/
