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The ‘Race Within a Race’

Rob Howard / 14.12.2008

Within any race there are always is always competition between teams all the way down the ranking. Team from the same country will always be competitive against each other and there are several national battles going on in this race. Here there is the added element that the prize money goes down to 30th place, so a few places won or lost makes a financial difference as well, though pride in performance always comes first. However, here there is another contest being referred to as ‘the race within a race’ and that is between the ADTA Award winners.

These the five teams who all won a free and expenses paid place, though different competitions around the world. The criteria for the competition was that they were from the countries selected by the race organisers and were all new to international adventure racing, although it was decided that one experienced more experienced racer would be allowed.

Three of the teams were chosen in host races where the top team with no international experience won the award. At Explore Sweden, the World Series qualifier which took place in September on the North-West coast of Sweden the lucky team were SWECO Adventure Team and of the ADTA teams they have had the best start in Abu Dhabi. All are very good orienteers but will get little advantage from that in this particular race and their most experienced racer is Ola Olsson who has set courses himself and raced in Eastern Europe. All the team members have experience in the Swedish multisport cup and are accomplished performers in this shorter race format. Of the four Jeanette Aviander is the least experienced at longer races as she only competes in the shorter courses at the multisport cup, so she may find the long paddling and trekking stages coming up challenging.

I know very little about the Slovenian team, only the won their place in the Slovenian Adventure race, but do of course know far more about Team SleepMonsters FGS who are the British and Irish ADTA Award winners. Their place was won SleepMonsters.co.uk, where the selection process was much longer. Teams applied and over a period of 4 months completed a team website to show their experience, results and training, then the best team in the view of the judges was chosen for the race. This was the team who race in the UK as For Goodness Shakes (hence the FGS in the title) and they are led by Andy Wilson, who has experience of long solo international races like the Iditarod trail race. and of expedition AR races in the UK like Wilderness ARC.. The rest of the team are very experienced at UK races, which are mostly one-day sprint events and you can read much more about them in articles lower down the list of Abu Dhabi race reports as the team have explained their preparation and training.

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