---

Registration opens

Susan McKenzie / 10.11.2005

Registration is usually a straightforward affair at an adventure race: check the gear, prove your navigational and rope skills, prove you have a tent and a first aid kit and then get the team photo. The registration for this year’s ARWC would have followed that pattern, too.
But then came the Didymo (Didymosphenia geminate), a pernicious algae (also known as rock snot) that made its debut in the Buller River on New Zealand’s West Coast (right around the race area) a few weeks ago. So now, a new station has been added to registration: the decontamination station. Bikes, kayaks, paddles, shoes – everything must be sprayed down before the race, and then again after every water section.

Environmental workers will spend the next two days at the Patterson Park Race Course in Westport decontaminating the gear of all 46 teams competing in this year’s Adventure Racing World Championship. Absolutely everything has to be hosed down to ensure that no Didymo is transferred from infected to healthy water. Once the Didymo takes hold, it smothers streams and rivers and attacks and kills all the invertebrates in the water. The race organizers are not taking this outbreak lightly.

The field for this year’s race is smaller than originally expected. Sixty teams registered for the race, but injuries and financial considerations have resulted in a final field of just 46, representing some twenty countries.

Registration will continue through Saturday. Sunday afternoon, the teams will parade down the main street of Westport before the course is revealed and the maps are handed out.

The weather this week has been spectacular – warm, sunny days, clear skies. In other words, not at all the weather anyone expected. The weather was expected to turn late this week, but now the forecast is calling for clear skies until Tuesday.

See All Stories On This Race