Dutch Championship Race ... in Scotland

Rob Howard / 28.04.2005

In what could be a first in Adventure Racing, a national championship race is taking place in another country. Up to 40 Dutch teams (and 20 international teams) will be heading for the hills and lochs of Scotland ... for this year’s Dutch Adventure Racing Championship!

The race, organised by ‘Adventure Support’ is scheduled for September 29th to October 3rd, and will be a non-stop event for teams of two, racing without support, which is equally unusual. It’s rare to find non-stop, multi-day races for pairs, and this will be a big course with 6000 vertical metres of climb and a race are of 680 square km.

Disciplines will include mountaineering and a short ‘ride & run’ horseback section, and on the canoeing stage, which takes a quarter of the route, there is grade 5 rapid, though that could be portaged. No dark zones are planned for the race, and there is a €5000 prize for the winning team.

In another unusual twist the organisers are aiming to make this course as accessible as possible to disabled athletes, who will pair up with volunteer racers to complete parts of the course.

The organisers originally announced the Championship would take place ‘about 830kms away from Utrecht, and the possibilities are: Norway, Sweden, Poland, Austria, Italy, Swiss, France or Great Britain’. Then the announcement that the race was being held in Scotland came yesterday (April 28th), though the venue and course area remain secret.