2016 XTrail Altay Expedition

International Teams Chasing the Chinese Dream

Rob Howard / 23.09.2016

With 28 teams arriving in the far northern part of Xinjiang, China, the first true non-stop adventure race in China is about to begin. It’s a dream destination for the teams, an exotic and culturally different destination close to Mongolia and Russia, with a spectacular and mountainous terrain that promises a unique and breathtaking course.

The race is a dream come true for the Race Director Wei Jun too.  For many years he was the principal planner of the multi-sport race programme in China, under the Chinese Mountaineering Association. Now working independently it’s been his dream to hold an expedition race and with the help of the AR World Series his 300km XTrail Expedition Race is about to get underway.

Some of the racers who have just arrived will know him well from racing in China over the past decade, and it’s always good to know your Race Director at any event, how he works, plans and thinks. Every advantage counts, especially in this race, which promises to be very fast and competitive. The old China hands won’t be stressed about what to expect, how to cope with the very different food or how the planning and logistics will work.

Among the 26 international teams are some very strong teams, both at the faster stage race format and in expedition racing, and as the race is something of mix of the two it will be fascinating to see who comes out on top. It’s probably the strongest field outside of the World Champs this year.

Highest in the ARWS rankings are the Adventure Medical Kits/Peak Adventure team (USA/Australia), who are #3 ranked, and top rankled team are Tecnu Adventure Racing (Canada/Spain) who are rebuilding their ranking after most of the team left to form AMK and took the ranking with them. Neither has much China experience behind them.

The Estonian ACE Adventure Team were 3rd in last year’s World Champs and currently rank 12th.  They recently won the Raid Gaspesie International in Canada (a fast 4 day multisport race) and are coming to the race from another event in China so are a very active team at the moment.

Haglof’s Silva (Sweden) are fielding a strong team (rank #8) and have been one of the most consistent and successful performers at expedition races over many years so will be marked down as favourites by many. However, AR World Series performance may not be the best guide to race form in this race.

Other contenders are Team Redbull (NZ/France) and Thule Adventure Team (Sweden/NZ) and this is where the China experience lies.  Redbull have two former World Champs in Marcel Hagener and Jacky Boisset and they’ve been regular racers in China for years, preferring the shorter, multi-stage format, and the prize money.  The same could be said for Thule and they are lead by Martin Flinta, another former World Champ. Thule also recently won the AR European Champs in Spain and the Wulong Outdoor Quest in China, which has declared itself the World Multi-sport Championship.

There are other strong teams too, all with lots of experience. Blackhill/Opavanet (Czech Republic), Mountain Design (Aus), Next Generation (NZ), and the very multinational Team Multisport.fi lead by Petri Forsman who was World Champion back in 2001, and is racing with Staffan Bjorklund of Sweden and Guilherme Pahl and Camila Nicolau of Brazil.  (With this exhibition race not being part of the AR World Series yet teams don’t have to worry about the line up affecting ranking points or any kind of nationality rules.)

The race starts at 09.30 local time on the 25th at the Kanas Tourist Centre and there will be live race tracking with YB satellite trackers so you can follow along and see how it all pans out. It’s going to be compulsive dot watching.

The full team list is as follows;