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Costa Rica Pits Its Wilderness against the World in an Adventure Race

Robert Goodier / 04.04.2006

After a year and a half of orchestrating grueling, epic slogs through Costa Rica 's tropics and volcano country, up-and-coming adventure race organizer Euforia Expeditions will crown its achievements promoting the sport with what is fairly considered the most difficult race Costa Rica has ever hosted. Slated for April 10-18, “Between Two Continents, Between Two Oceans: Costa Rica Solo Adventure Race� is a course that has attracted world-class individual racers and encompasses 250 kilometers up mountain peaks, along whitewater rivers and into the heat of the rain-forested Pacific plains.

Departing from the team-racing format employed in most adventure races, this one will pit top athletes against one another singly, in 60-80 hours of continuous racing. The stakes are a pot of $12,000 cash for the winners in both the men's and women's categories. “The course is quite tough, and definitely not just anyone will be able to finish it,� said Gergard Linner, a Costa Rican race veteran and support-team director of one of the course's four regions.

In his years in the business, Linner has seen the worst the country could throw at its challengers, but he insists that Euforia's monster is “the hardest of all�. “In what has gone on in Costa Rica, there's nothing that compares,� he said. “You have to be prepared physically and mentally, because you're not going out there to play around.�

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