World Championships Photography Book Published

Rob Howard / 04.08.2007

Adventure Racing challenges all who participate, and that includes the media who wrestle with the almost impossible task of portraying a sport which is inaccessible and where for every one story or photograph taken another 10 are missed ... on a good day. Like the competitors, the media are at the mercy of the elements and access to the racers is more limited than most observers might imagine. It comes at a cost too. Physical exertion and lack of sleep are not the sole preserve of racers.

To attempt to portray a race of the immense scope and scale of the recent 2007 Adventure Racing World Championships in Scotland is a Herculean task, and one few could attempt, and fewer still could succeed in.

With the publication of his coffee-table photographic book of the race (published just two months after the race) Wouter Kingma has succeeded.

The book is a landscape format photo-essay following the race, from excited preparation to exhausted finish, with an accompanying text by Travis Macey and contributions from Mike Kloser of race winners Team Nike, and from Karine Baillet of Team Wilsa Helly Hansen. There area also commentaries from the Race Director and Course Planner which give some insight into the demands of organising such a race.

In the book’s 88 pages there are over 200 images of the race, supported by descriptive writing and sympathetic captioning. They tell the story of a race Baillet describes as one of the most difficult she has ever completed and comparable to the 1000km Raid Gauloises in Vietnam.