The World Adventure Racing Championships (XPD Australia)
On Your Marks For the AR World Championships
Patrick Kinsella / 28.09.2011
With the Adventure Racing World Championships just a month away from kicking off in Tasmania, the final line up of teams has been decided ... now the serious stuff begins.Last year's XPD offered competitors the chance to tangle with stinging trees, get leaches stuck to their eyeballs and collide with crocodiles in the middle of the night, all as they were negotiating their way through a 700km wilderness-based course in kayaks, on bikes, down ropes and by foot. This year the event – Australia's last true expedition-style adventure race – is doubling as the AR World Championships, and rumour has it that race director Craig Bycroft is taking this rather seriously...
Despite (or perhaps because of) this, public entries into the XPD sold out months ago, with many local teams champing at the bit to pit their wits, stamina and multi-sporting prowess against the world’s best adventure racers.
And it isn’t just locals wanting a slice of the action – this is a genuine world championships and 23 different countries will be represented by teams in Tasmania, setting a new record for ARWC and underlining just how colourful and competitive this race is promising to be.
The stampede for a place on the starting line left a number of elite teams in a gut-wrenchingly nervous situation, however. The easy route into the World Champs slammed shut when open entries sold out, meaning anyone left on the other side would have to fight for their right to party with the adventurous portion of the planet’s population's premier league. Not only that, but the events where they'd have to prove themselves worthy were among the toughest multi-day adventure races on earth – the AR World Series qualifiers.
“During our recent trip it became very apparent just how many top teams have been going to ARWS qualifiers specifically to win a spot at the World Championships,� observed Craig Bycroft after returning from a tour of some of the World Series events.
“We have the winner of every qualifying race attending, plus the defending World Champions. It’s the first time that has ever happened – it is going to be an incredibly competitive race down in Tasmania.�
The final three teams to secure their spots were <a href="#" onClick="javascript:newsitewindow('http://wildernesstraverse.com/')" class="main">Team WildernessTraverse.com</a>(who won the Raid the North Extreme in BC, Canada at the end of July), <a href="#" onClick="javascript:newsitewindow('http://www.quechua.com/en-NL/team-quechua-a-260.html')" class="main">Team Quechua.com</a>(winners of the Raid in France, which took place 28 August–1 September) and <a href="#" onClick="javascript:newsitewindow('http://tecnuextremestaphaseptic.blogspot.com/')" class="main">Team Tecnu Extreme</a>, who nailed the very last place with a stunning September 11th victory in the Gold Rush Mother lode in central California.See All Event Posts
