Indoor in Sweden
Rob / 01.04.2004
The ‘Explore Sweden Qualifier’ is taking place at the Wilderness and Adventure Fair in Stockholm, and the lucky winners will get a free place in the main event in June. It’s an entry worth 3,500 Euros in cash, and a chance to race against the very best teams in the world. It’s also the only way into the first ever ‘Airborne Expedition Adventure’, which has been full since January.
The race follows last year’s successful event (SIAR), and crams a whole lot of action into the 1000m square ‘gladiator arena’. Teams of 3 will race head to head, trail running, mountain biking, rope and water sections, and rowing. Like the British race at the NEC there are heats over two days, and a final on day 3, but this is much more of a sprint race.
Each heat is a single, gruelling circuit with the winners expected to take 20-25 minutes, so the races are set to start at half hour intervals. On Sunday the quarter, semi-finals and finals all take place, so a team getting to the final could race 3 times in 3 hours!
The course includes some very novel challenges for an indoor race. There is an enclosed area used as a ‘dark zone’ (for ‘night navigation’), and even some underwater pipes the competitors have to swim through. Then the simulator stage on bike and kayak trainers comes at the end, so teams will race to the finish and be stationary!
It all sounds like great fun, and the tops teams from Scandinavia are there, hoping to make it to ‘Explore Sweden’. Last year Team Maybe won SIAR, and this time there are teams ‘Maybe 1’ and ‘Maybe 2’, and there are also two teams from the Nokia Adventure squad. (Both teams are already entered in Explore Sweden though.) Craft might also be among the contenders for the top prize too.
All the details, reports and results will be on the Explore Sweden website.
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