Estoril Portugal XPD Race 08
Conference in the Crypt and Web TV
29.11.2008
Once inside the grand courtyard of the venue was not so easy to find, it was down a flight of unmarked steps which led into the old reservoir tank, set underneath the courtyard itself. This crypt-like structure with columns supporting the roof was the venue for the race opening ceremony and a short international AR conference.
The Tourism Directors of the towns of Cascais and Estoril welcomed the athletes and explained something of the attractions of the area, then race Director Alexandre de Silva opened the conference which addressed two key issues – T.V. for adventure racing and the international organisation for the sport.
Silva teaches TV at Lisbon University and has the help of a group of students for this race (and the facilities of the university department) and has set up a groundbreaking experiment in web TV for this race. They are going to attempt to cover the race ‘live’ from the course, uploading footage and interviews as regularly as possible onto a web TV channel created especially for the event. This can be viewed on the race website and here on SleepMonsters. He stressed it is an experimental project – so please keep that in mind when watching. You can already see some previews and team profiles on there.
The discussion on race organisation was opened by Alexandre de Silva explaining how the International Orienteering Federation had discussed a proposal for adopting’ Adventure racing’ ‘under its control. (This is how AR is governed and run in Portugal.). As de Silva explained the IOF were far from unanimous in accepting this idea and agreed only to discuss it further .- and of course it is not an idea which can be taken forward without the agreement of races around the world!
There were also discussions on how to rank adventure racing (by individual or team, and what comprised a team) but there was little consensus on this tricky issue either.
After this the conference closed and the room was made ready for the briefing later in the day. This followed registration, which took place up in the courtyard of the fortress during the afternoon.
SleepMonsters
