Wulong Mountain Quest
The Wulong Mountain Quest – The Race for Top Dollar
Rob Howard / 04.09.2013
The Wulong Mountain Quest (WMQ) has established itself as the most prestigious adventure races in the world and is now one of the longest established multisport races in the calendar.
In 2013 the race will be held for the 11th time in Wulong County, southern China. The race is held in an area of outstanding natural beauty with limestone mountains, the deep Wulong river gorge and the high plateau of the Fairy Meadow National Forest Park which, along with some spectacular caves, are always included in the race course.
The format of the race is a three day stage race for teams of 4, with daily racing time of between 6 and 9 hours. The race course includes technical mountain biking on single track trails with steep, fast descents and long uphill slogs as well as running over fantastic small mountain trails, through narrow gorges and along enormous cliffs. It is a straight multisport race with no navigational challenges – the course is well marked and often lined by cheering local villagers.
A short prologue will be held the day before the race and teams the nights recovering in a comfortable race hotel. They need to as it always a fast, high intensity race, with very close competition.
To make the race appealing to the best of international teams, the race sponsors offer high prize money – and it works! They always attract the world’s top racers and teams from around the world. This year the international entry includes the following;
· Team Toread; Richard and Elina Ussher, Braden Currie & Stuart Lynch
· Thule Adventure Team; Martin Flinta, Marcel Hagener, Jackie Boisset & Myriam Guillot
· Tineli NZ; Glen Currie, Jacob Roberts, Dougal Allen & Jess Simson
· Haglofs Silva; Mattias Nyström, Aaron Prince, Emil Dahlqvist & Josefina Vikberg
· Peakadventure.com.au; Jared Kohlar, James Pretto, Scott Cole & Nic Leary
· Moxie Gear/Nuun; Deanna Blegg, Darren Clarke, Tim Boote & Kayten Smith
Team Seagate had to pull, otherwise the world’s top 3 ranked teams would have been competing.
Most of the international racers have extensive experience of racing at Wulong (and the hazards of local food and hot conditions) and know what to expect, and many have raced at other similar events in China. Richard Ussher’s team have the connections to get local company sponsorship and regular winners, so must be among the favourites, but it always close.
Thule Adventure are regular competitors too and their line up is the same one as won the Baise Mountain Quest in China last year. We’ll have news from them each day and videos from Sylvain Bossiet, a professional filmmaker who will follow the team in Wulong.
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