Adventure Racing Countries Vote to Establish their own International Association

Press Release / 21.04.2023

The freedom-loving sport of Adventure Racing has overwhelmingly voted to establish their own independent, international structure for the sport; one that aligns with its values and needs. They have chosen to decline the invitation from World Obstacle, the Fédération Internationale de Sports d’Obstacles (FISO), to join its Federation.  

This vote to establish an independent, international body to represent the sport of Adventure Racing was a reaction to a cumulation of actions by World Obstacle, the Fédération Internationale de Sports d’Obstacles (FISO), who, over at least the last two year, have represented themselves as the governing body of the sport of Adventure Racing.

For more than 30 years, the sport of Adventure Racing has been loosely organised. The community’s focus has been on participating in races, not on formal administration of the sport. In recent years, some countries have established independent national bodies or partnerships with other sporting disciplines, while the rest function as communities of participants, teams and event organisers.

In February 2023, World Obstacle called a meeting of adventure racers, race directors and interested parties to inform them that FISO had agreed to bring the sport of adventure racing under its umbrella as a recognised international federation, to codify the sport and bring it into line with other recognised sporting structures. To progress this work, they wished to gather nominations to populate representative structures for adventure racing including a Technical Committee and other subcommittees. Representatives from World Obstacle also stated that they wanted the adventure racing community to endorse and support the inclusion of adventure racing under World Obstacle, and this was needed for the sport to progress. 

The AR community in attendance resisted the move to nominate representatives for World Obstacle’s Technical Committees, agreeing instead to initiate a consultation process on the matter of joining World Obstacle.  A consultation working group was established. After a comprehensive eight-week consultation process with adventure racing communities around the world, the international AR community voted to decline the offer from World Obstacle to represent the sport internationally. 

The results of this consultation process were endorsed by representatives of the adventure racing countries in a follow up meeting held on 15 April and then communicated to representatives of World Obstacle. The organisation was informed that the international adventure racing community did not wish to accept their invitation. World Obstacle hasbeen respectfully asked to remove all references of adventure racing from their website and literature, to halt the formation of any Technical and Other committees for Adventure Racing, to stop presenting World Obstacle (FISO) as the governing body of Adventure Racing, and to have no further involvement in the governance, codifying and representation of the sport of Adventure Racing.

The completion of the consultation work undertaken by the Working Group over the past eight weeks brings to an end the debate about World Obstacle in the sport of Adventure Racing.  The adventure racing community respects and admires all OCR enthusiasts and wishes the sport well, but  work now starts on the planning of a new independent, international Adventure Racing association to represent the sport; a body that will promote international cooperation, aid the development of the sport, and uphold the values and spirit of adventure racing.

Working Group Representatives: 

Cormac Mac Donnell (Ireland)

Lars Bukkehave (Denmark)

Lisa de Speville (South Africa)

Damon de Boor (UK)

You can read the full meeting notes and see more details on the polls and voting which have taken place on this document - 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BmS-tkNe28yU410Lel4q3XVeoR33Ek3N