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Chased Around London

25.09.2006

The Merrell City Chase arrived on the streets of London on September 16th. It’s a combination of street orienteering and scavenger hunt that developed in Canada and already claims to be ‘the world’s largest urban adventure series’.

The London race was the first of several planned for European cities and although only 75 pairs arrived at the start in Russell Square the series founder Nick Jelinek wasn’t too worried. “ We had this number at our first race in Toronto and after 2 years we get 4000 across Canada, so you should be proud to be the first to bring City Chase to Europe!�

There were some familiar faces from adventure racing warming up and listening to a motivational introduction by Olympic rower Tim Foster who supports the race charity ‘Sparks’. Other competitors came from gyms, local businesses and quite a few were London based ex-pats from around the world. None of them really knew what was about to happen, they’d just been told to arrive with an open mind and a sense of humour – and to bring along a pen, paper and mobile phone.

Scavengers and Surfers

Jelinek’s briefing filled everyone in on a few of the very different rules from any other event. Using of public transport and the internet was allowed and encouraged, teams could work together and with anyone else who would help, but private transport (taxis, bikes, cars) were not an option.

He was soon playing mind games, rattling off a string of personal information at top speed, and then saying afterwards there were clues in it they’d need and they really should have written them down! He even dropped his trousers to reveal boxer shorts with the tube map on them and said he thought Archway tube was on his left testicle. (That too was a clue.)

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