European Championships Launched

Rob / 01.08.2003

An experienced Dutch organising team have launched a European Championship race for 2004, with a qualifying races and teams representing their countries.

Registration for the European Championship Adventure Race, which is to be held in Austria from June 26th to July 3rd 2004, opened on the new website on August the first. It’s going to be a big race, 6 days and 400kms through the Alps, including kayaking, canoeing, canyoning, via ferrata and horse riding. The organisers are aiming to get all the top European teams to take part – in fact teams from outside Europe won’t be allowed to enter!

There are 35 places available at a cost of € 2500 and the details and an application form are on a new web site, along with information about the organisers and the qualification process. This is very much along the lines of Goeff Hunt’s World Championship series and the British Championships, using existing races as qualifiers, with the winners getting a paid up entry into the Championships. At the moment only 2 qualifiers have been announced, Terra Incognita in Croatia this September, and the Dutch Lagu race in May 2004, but there are more to come.

The organisers of this race, Gerard de Graaf and Stan van Jaarsveld are combining with the other main race organiser in Holland, Geert van Dijk, to put the new championships and the final together. They all have a lot of experience working on big races around the world and run the Dutch AR site, www.adventurerace.nl as well as organising numerous other races and the Dutch Championships.

There was another ‘European Championships’ which was held this year in the Canary Isles and organised by Antonio de la Rosa of top Spanish team ‘Red Bull’. This was a one-off race, with several top teams from outside Europe, and was won by Nokia Adventure, but with truly national teams and a European qualification process the new race would appear to have a more credible claim to the title ‘European Championship’.

The biggest obstacle it might face is calendar congestion and the fact that so many top European teams race in the X-adventure series. However, AR is spreading widely throughout Europe and with enough races behind it as qualifiers it should fill a valuable spot in the calendar and cement the growing number of national championships that are already being organised.

See the new web site here.
See our calendar entry here.