Airbus Win World Team Challenge
Rob Howard / 12.12.2005
Team Airbus have won the corporate ‘World Team Challenge’, run by the Challenger World organisation last weekend in Citrus County, Florida. The UK team were the defending champions after winning in Spain last year, and retained their title with a strong performance.The event is a mix of multi-sport, puzzle-solving and teamwork challenges for company teams, run under the legend ‘Intelligent Sport’. Teams had qualified for the ‘World’ Event from UK, European and U.S. challenge events earlier in the year and Airbus once again proved they have the brains and the brawn to be the top company team.
They were off to a strong start on a score orienteering stage where the team split into pairs, giving them a lead they held on the following ‘engineering/building’ stage, normally the weakest discipline of the Airbus team who started well but finished 7th. Qinetiq (UK) won the stage, and followed this with another win on the overnight puzzle solving/orienteering stage, to give them an overnight lead.
Airbus were not to be denied however, and on the hot mountain biking and canoeing stages on day 2 they were in a different class, recording emphatic wins to retain their title. Qinetiq finished 3rd and Accenture (UK) second.
The only teams from outside the UK to get into the top 10 were Scania of Sweden and Hewlett Packard of Spain. The U.S. teams struggled to match the European teams but they are new to this competition where experience is vital. No doubt they’ll have learned their lessons and will be stronger next year.
