Czech Adventure Race 2011
Completing the Czech Adventure Race
Jan Smolik / 24.08.2011
After two hot days and nights (one team had told me they were putting wet buffs around their heads at night to cool themselves down) Friday afternoon brought storms. Fortunately, the worst storms had missed most of the race area. The third night however was cold.
There were only three more teams remaining on the full course after the top three finished. The rest of the teams had already been put to the short course. Five teams did not make the cut off after the inline-trekking stage. Two of those had actually opted to skip part of this stage completely, as they were poor skaters. Two other teams had to shorten the trekking stage. It had proven so difficult that some teams already on the short course skipped more CPs than they were supposed to, just to make it to the finish line by Saturday 1 pm. The rRemaining two teams missed the cut-off after the trekking stage.
It is not usual for The Czech Adventure Race that so many teams end up on a short course. There is usually plenty of time for slower teams to complete the race, but this was the European Championships and the course was longest in the history of the race.
The battle for the fourth place became surprisingly dramatic at the finish line. Fourth to arrive to the finish area was the Estonian team ‘Kadarbiku Kanged’ but they never made it to the podium. The girl they were racing with was suffering from hypothermia and they immediately called medics who put her under a hot shower and then called an ambulance to be sure. She is alright now but the risk seemed unnecessary as she was already cold at the orienteering section and did not paddle for remaining two hours. Estonians seem to be really tough people who are able to push themselves behind normal limits. A couple of hours later another Estonian had to be supported by two teammates just to get the remaining 20 meters from the boat to the podium.
Meanwhile Czech team ‘Warmpeace Adventure/VŠSK UHK’ arrived and was ranked fourth. The organizers have decided to keep ‘Kadarbiku Kanged’ in the race as it would be really strict to disqualify them 100 meters from the finish line. On the other hand they were only ranked fifth as they did not make it to the finish line before Warmpeace. Some decisions are not simple in the world of adventure racing, but nobody complained about this one.
The last team to finish full course was ‘Kompar Xstream’ who made it to the finish with only 75 minutes remaining to the limit. As they are finishers of Explore Sweden Monster Edition and participants of this year’s APEX it is clear it took a lot to finish the full course.
The longest time on the course was achieved by Danish team ‘USG Adventure’ and the last classified team was ‘GAMP Adventure’ from France. The most jokes were cracked by ‘The Dutch Lowe’, who were always in the good spirits.
The Czech Adventure Race has successfully tested new results system where teams were self reporting their times from individual CPs. Those self reports were automatically processed and put on the website. The team then automatically received an update on their ranking and results of teams before them and behind them (at the previous CP). While both organizers and competitors were afraid at first that it would be cumbersome, it was accepted by the racers (they liked knowing the results and the fact people are really following their progress) and loved by people who watched the race on the Internet.
The organizers are already getting ready for the next edition. It is not clear where it will be, but it definitely will be shorter and more teams will have opportunity to finish full course.
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