2002 Year Review
July - Home and Away
Rob / 24.12.2002
Alpine Adventures
On the international scene the month began with the Alpine stage of the X-adventure Raid series in France, including hydro-speeding, via ferrata, and some difficult stages in poor weather. Our report came from Tim Lloyd, team manager of Team Saab Salomon, who were still learning about the format and tactics of the series … and how to inline skate!
Read about it here.
Chasing Riches in Colorado
Next came the long awaited and much hyped arrival of the Suburu Primal Quest – the richest race in the world with a $250,000 prize purse, and not surprisingly it attracted the world’s top teams for one of the most competitive races of 2002. The weather in the mountains of Colorado was searingly hot and with 65,000 feet of climbing it was a course for mountaineers and the winners were SoBe/Smartwool of New Zealand lead by racing legend Steve Gurney. It was just one of many wins for kiwi teams in a year of where they took top spot at almost all the big international races. The 7th place for Bridgedale Ireland put them among the world’s best and for team captain Noel Hanna followed his recent wins in both Adrenalin Rush and Raid the North Extreme.
Read about it here.
Under African Skies
Surprisingly they were snow filled skies at a freezingly cold Adventure Quest Africa, a qualifier for the World Championships. It was a tough race with a high attrition rate and we had two detailed accounts, first from David Ogden who was supporting ‘International Adventurers’ (read it here), and then Cindy Van Zyl’s blow by blow account of her race with team Jabberwock. This was one of the best race reports of the year and if you missed it first time you can still read it here.
UK Weekend Warriors
In the UK the one-day series were in full swing with Ford Adventure, Trailplus, Questars and Salomon X-adventure races all taking place around the country, and the Exmoor ACE Race coming at the end of the month. This was the BARC qualifier and with over 300 competitors it was the biggest ACE ever – until the next one. The weather was hot, the hills of Exmoor at their best and the ‘Le Mans’ style canoe starts which launched hundreds of inflatable canoes onto Wimbleball Lake was a sight which probably still haunts the local fishermen. SleepMonsters put up a feast of photos from this race – nearly 400!! See them all and read the report here.
Read about the one-day races here:
Trailplus – Sandhurst.
Questars - Wye Valley.
Salomon X-adventure – Kielder Forest.
Ford Adventure Series – Ashdown Forest.
SleepMonsters
