Wulong Mountain Quest
The Wulong Mountain Quest - China's Hidden Gem
Rob Howard / 17.09.2009
Wulong is not an easy place to get to. From Beijing it's a 2 hour internal flight to Chongqing , followed by a 4 hour drive to the township. Given its location the area is little known, although some resourceful and curious travellers are now starting to arrive, and Wulong does get a mention in the latest Lonely Planet guide to China. (It's not surprising that tourism is in its infancy as the area had no road or rail links at all until this century!)
Despite this, within the select world of elite adventure racing teams, Wulong has now become a regular entry on the race calendar, for a variety of reasons. The dramatic Karst limestone mountains of the region and the chance to visit China come top of the list, closely followed by some impressive prize money. With US$150,000 to be won, this is a big money race. The winners receive US$35,000 and the prize list goes down to 14th place, plus there are stage prizes for the top three finishers, which will push that winners total towards £40,000.
The race also has a reputation for good organisation and a track record for delivering spectacular and really challenging courses, planned by Peter Weinig. Teams like the fast and furious daily stage format as well. The racing is all based from the same hotel in Wulong, with each day of the three days of competition lasting somewhere between 6 and 9 hours. (There is also a prologue, which takes place on Sunday.) The chance of some hard racing in such an exotic location, good prize money, and with the comforts of a hotel bed and food each night is not one to pass up!
So, why is the race not more widely known? It's possible those lucky elite teams who go each year are keeping it quiet, but the main reason is the organising team have concentrated on promoting the race within China until now. International news and promotion has taken a back seat, and the language barrier has been hard to overcome, so communication between the organisers and the wider AR community has been limited.
All that is about to change as SleepMonsters is delighted to be the first international publication to be invited to report live from the Wulong Mountain Quest. Working closely with the race organising team I will be at the race reporting on each day's activities and posting picture galleries of the action around the course. The first news of the arrival of the teams, the opening ceremony and the race briefing will be on Saturday 19th, the prologue is on the 20th, and the first full day of racing is Monday 21st. With teams like Nike, Orion Health and Team Explore taking part it's going to be quite a race!
[If you want to know more about the race and see a full team list there is a English language version at http://www.wulongquest.com/en/hwyd/]
SleepMonsters
