Ecomotion/Pro 2008 Adventure Racing World Championship
The Adventure Club
Rob Howard / 01.11.2008
For the start of a World Championship Friday was a fairly relaxed day, with a lunch time social and evening opening ceremony. This allowed teams time to prepare equipment and vehicles, see something of the town where the race will finish, and even watch the sunset from the huge sand dunes just outside town.The lunch was in the Mosquito Blue Hotel on the beach front bar, and was a chance to meet old friends and exchange race and team T-shirts. It is a tradition of the race to allow the teams to relax and socialise before the competition begins. The kitchen was a bit overwhelmed (any would be given 250 adventure racers to feed) and it was a long queue, but that just allowed plenty of time for old friendships to be renewed. At the opening ceremony Geoff Hunt later said the ARWorld Series was like a big ‘adventure club’ meeting up in different places around the world, enjoying the intense competition of the race and celebrating friendship before and after.
Before the opening ceremony there was time to walk into the sand dunes just outside of town, one of the biggest of which is nearest to town.
This is the viewing spot for watching the sunset, and it was also where Ian Edmond and Nora Audra were married before the race. (During the opening ceremony one of several very impressive videos was entitled ’Love and Adventure’ and showed the wedding and the couple being pushed off down the sand dune in a kayak with a tail of tin cans rattling behind them.)
A few teams were out for a run as well, some with different arrangements of gaiters to try and keep the sound out of their shoes, but that is going to be hard. The wind is constant and drives the sand against you and into everything. (The terrain and climate here will make life difficult for all. My cameras were sand blasted and when I got back to my computer it found it was infested with ants ... they are still crawling out of the keyboard!) Paul Romero and Karen Lundgren of Team Sole were out for a run and they are racing with the newlyweds in a 2+2 team that could prove very strong. They know the race well and won it in 2006.
In fact almost all of the past winners are here again, this is a race the elite teams keep coming back to. At the prize giving members of all the past winning teams were invited onto stage for a fun interview, but Mike Kloser of Team Nike seemed to have gone missing. When all the teams were announced and stood up, only Chris Forne was there to take the applause for the defending world champions. (Maybe his idea to get Mike to relax is off to a bad start!)See All Event Posts
