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Oslo City Challenge – A Surrealistic Experience

Dag Helland-Hansen / 24.08.2004

The short Scandinavian night is at its darkest. You are standing at the cliff edge with an 8 meter drop down to the dark sea below. Your team mates jump, other competitors rush from behind. Your heart is pounding, adrenalin pumping, but you have never jumped from higher than 5 m and that was in a pool. What do you do?

Team mates in the water below yell, the competition adrenalin kicks in, you jump! Stomach tingling as you accelerate in the free air, then splash into an inferno of bubbles and salt water. Wow!. You pushed your personal limits and survived; the adrenalin rush is replaced with the comfort of increased self confidence, as you set of to enjoy the swim across the fjord to the next control point at a small island.

Cliff jumping was just one of the adventures in the Oslo City Challenge this year, a small obstacle for some and a major challenge for others.

However the cliff jumping was not the most spectacular challenge. There were more post-race discussion on the 80 meter free-abseil from one of many cliffs surrounding Oslo. It took place at sunrise, with an incredible view of the city and coast.

But undisputedly the biggest thrill was the very early morning canyoning section. A deep river canyon divides the City of Oslo from the Bærum community, with a roaring river in the very bottom. This Eldorado for river kayaks in spring time was now the scene for the C2-canyoning section. Partly climbing, swimming and running through the canyon before the section ended off by jumping into the bottom of a waterfall and drifting into and through a tunnel/cave ... an experience later described as surreal.

All these experiences were part of a full weekend of racing divided into 3 stages; a prologue in the inner City of Oslo on Friday evening, ‘The Long Night’ and ‘The Day After’, which took the racers out into the countryside surrounding Oslo, finishing off at a beach resort Sunday afternoon.

Adventure racing is a relatively new sport in Norway and Race Director Dag Helland-Hansen said, “We want to create a high quality race with the focus on variety and experiences in the natural surroundings around the city, but with relatively low entry fees and gear requirements.�

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