The Adventure Racing World Series Rankings. New Look and New Features

Press Release / 05.08.2025

The worldwide ranking system for adventure racing, run by the ARWS, has been upgraded and will now include more racers in different categories.

The Adventure Racing World Series rankings have been running since 2010 and in that time have included 350 adventure races around the world, 3700 teams and over 11,500 athletes from 163 countries.

With every ranking update teams eagerly check their ranking position, which is compiled from their results for the previous 2 years of racing.  The last major revision to the ranking system was in 2020, when regional ARWS races and rankings were introduced.  The global rankings continued to rank teams in ARWS Qualifier (expedition length) races, and in each continental region teams were now ranked in more accessible weekend races.

Now the rankings have had another major revision to reflect the recent explosive growth of the ARWS and the changing nature of adventure racing.  The website presentation of the rankings has also been upgraded to be more intuitive and to add new functionality.

The changes are to the ARWS Regional rankings, where all participating teams, of any size and gender mix, will now be ranked.

Since its inception in 2001 the Adventure Racing World Series has followed the format laid down by the original adventure race, the Raid Gauloises, and ranked only mixed gender teams.  This was carried over from expedition racing into the shorter regional races, and up to now the ARWS rankings (which are for teams and not individuals), have only ranked mixed gender teams of 4.

New World #1 Team Vidaraid

With the latest revision this has changed and in regional races all participating teams will now be ranked, and teams will be able to see a ranking for their category, as well as their overall ranking amongst all teams. 

With teams of 2, 3 and 4 competing in regional races in male, female and mixed combinations, there are now 9 ranking categories for regional teams.  These categories are now active in the North America, Oceania and Africa regions, and will be applied to all regions in the next ranking update in early December.

The North America region has led the way in the implementation of these changes, and has ranked all teams since its launch 2 years ago.  This was because in the USA teams of 3 are more popular, and also the first stage races joined the ARWS in that region, and these are mostly for competitors racing in pairs.  

Since then stage races have also joined the series in Australia and two women-only races have joined the Oceania Series.  Next week the ITERA-Lite race in Scotland will also be the first ARWS regional race for pairs only.

Adventure Racing World Series CEO Heidi Muller said, “In the last few years the ARWS has expanded to over 80 races worldwide and now includes several different kinds of adventure races.  As an organisation we needed to adapt to the innovations our Race Directors are making and support their hard work to attract new racers.  These changes to the Regional rankings will make the ARWS more inclusive and accessible, and help our Race Directors grow the sport.”

The changes followed a discussion paper and meetings of ARWS Race Directors and the Non-Executive Board last year, and have been implemented by Rankings Technical Director Todd Stafford and Media Director Rob Howard.

Howard explained, “Any rankings system for adventure racing will be complex and this is especially true for the ARWS as we are working with races all around the world, and in many languages.  As a result maintaining the rankings is one of the biggest administrative tasks of the ARWS, requiring hundreds of hours of work through the year.  With this upgrade, improvements have also been made to the internal operations of the system, to bring it up to date and improve the process of delivering a world class ranking system for adventure racing teams and racers.”

Team Rib Mountain Racing - New ARWS N. America #1 team

At the same time as introducing the new regional team categories, the website presentation has been amended to show more clearly which racers are included in the permitted squad of 7, and which race points contribute to a team’s ranking total.  Only counting races from the past two years of competition are shown, but the full ranking history of teams and racers, some going back to 2011, is still available at the click of a button.

There are no changes to the global ARWS rankings which rank expedition length, World Championship Qualifier races.  Only mixed gender teams of 4 are ranked in the ARWS World Rankings, and only these ‘premier mixed teams’ can win a World Championship place or carry any regional rankings points into the world rankings.

The latest ARWS Rankings update was made on August 1st, and can now be seen on www.arworldseries.com.  The update adds 36 events across all regions, which have taken place over the past 4 months, and the most significant change is that after a long stay at #1, the Swedish Armed Forces Adventure Team has been replaced by Vidaraid as the world’s top adventure racing team.

There was also a significant change in the North America rankings, where Rib Mountain Racing jumped 20 places to take the #1 place after a string of recent wins.

You can see all of the latest global and regional rankings at https://arworldseries.com/world-rankings/current-rankings

Learn more about the ARWS ranking system at; https://arworldseries.com/world-rankings/about