Dream Team TV - Show Times

Rob / 18.08.2002

The good news is Adventure Racing is on TV again shortly, but the bad news (for most of us) is it’s in Welsh and only available on S4C! The saving grace is there are subtitles and some satellite service packages do include access to S4C.

The series, called Cymru Ar Ras, follows the progress of Team Wales last year and is made by AR film specialists Dream Team T.V., who put the made-for-TV team together. (It’s hard enough to find a team sometimes – let alone with the requirement they speak Welsh!)

For the most part they were competing in the Salomon X-adventure international series and the first programme, which goes out at 8pm on Thursday 22nd includes the first X-adventure of 2001, which took place in glorious sunshine in Southern Spain. (It also features the Coast to Coast Race in New Zealand.) The team didn’t do too well in that race, but in the remaining 5 shows in the series their positions improve, with a high point of 2nd in the race in Japan.

Other X-adventure races in the series are at Salt Lake City in the USA, in the Austrian Alps, where there were was an epic zip wire traverse over a waterfall and some very scary hydro-speeding, and finally the UK 24 hour national event in Snowdonia. (They had to do that one of course!) That race had the most dramatic of endings as they lost by seconds in a ‘sprint finish’ with Team Parrot/Lythgoe.

It’s not all X-adventure though. One films starts with them escaping from jail in Tasmania, after being locked up by the locals for winning the ‘Cradle to the Coast Race’ too easily. They are set free by team Captain Aled Rees to compete in the Freynciyet Challenge, a multi-sport sprint relay, and when they don’t win Aled throws them back in jail!

The final show features this year’s Helly Hansen 3 Peaks Yacht Race, which they won, and by chance that is also being shown this week on Trans World Sport, which is broadcast all round the world. The times in the UK are expected to be as follows, but always check as late changes to show times can be made.

• Thursday August 22nd
• Sky 2 - 1pm and 5pm
• Sky Sport Extra - 8pm

• Friday August 23rd
• Sky Sports 1 - 7am
• Sky Sports 3 - 12 noon
• Sky Sports 3 - 4pm

• Saturday August 24th
• S4C - 8am
• Channel 4 - 8am

With no film contract this year Team Wales have had less outings, but they are hoping to take part in the British Championship Final on home ground in Snowdonia at the end of September.