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World Champs Course Complete

Nicole Fairweather / 29.09.2005

The course for the 2005 Adventure Racing World Championship (ARWC) in the rugged Buller region of the West Coast of the Southern Alps has now been designed and 60 international and Kiwi teams will take up the challenge to compete for the world title in November.

The world event which is principally sponsored by the West Coast Development Trust will be held from November 11-19.

The Queenstown based event management company, Southern Traverse Ltd, won the rights to run the 2005 World Championship. It is the third world championship to be held - the first was in Switzerland in 2001 and the second in Newfoundland, Canada in 2004.

The 2004 Southern Traverse was held on the West Coast based out of Hokitika while the ARWC will have Westport as its headquarters. The course is not expected to be any tougher than last year\'s Traverse, which was made particularly difficult by rough weather conditions.

\"The Southern Traverse has a reputation for outstanding adventure race course design and any of the courses we have created in the last few years have been at a sufficient level for a World Championship,\" says AR World Series Director Geoff Hunt.

The World Championship course will however be longer than the traditional Traverse. Last year\'s West Coast race was won in 99 hours by the winning Team Kathmandu.

\"I\'m expecting the winners this year to complete the race in around 106 hours.\" Hunt added. The race includes trekking, mountain biking, rafting, kayaking (ocean and river) rope skills and caving.

\"The weather is also a major influencing factor. Each year the Southern Traverse has attracted its share of inclement weather, which has had an effect on the race course and competitors. With the event this year in the Buller region we may expect to attract more Nelson type than West Coast weather,\" he says..\"Some of the bush is a bit kinder as well, being more beech trees and tussock, rather than the unforgiving monkey shrub competitors encountered last year. There is also lots of good single track mountain bike riding which they will enjoy.\"