Terra Incognita
Ready to Explore Terra Incognita
Rob / 24.05.2004
News on the course has already been released and teams will be studying their maps as soon as they arrive. They’ll get wet right at the start with a 200m swim to their kayaks, and then day one will take them along the length of the Kornati islands, and from the first it will be a race against the clock. Teams who do not complete this traverse of the islands will be put onto a short course at the end of day one.
The full course measures an impressive 369km, and with 133km of kayaking on rivers, lakes and the ocean, so it will favour strong paddlers. However, there is 126km of mountain biking and 104 km of trekking, including an ascent to Dinara, Croatia’s highest peak, plus 4km of canyoning and 2km of swimming. It’s going to be a very spectacular course and the winners are expected to finish on Sunday, taking almost 5 days to complete the route.
‘Event Endure’, the joint Finnish/UK team are tipped as one of the favourites, having won round one of the ERL in Canada. The Croatian team ‘Osiguranje Zagreb’ were second last year and first in 2000, so they should do well, but they’ll find the standard of competition higher than ever. In fact it’s taken a quantum leap. However, they have the added advantage of being joined by polish athlete Maciek Olesinski who captained the winning team in 2001 and 2003.
The other returning past champion is Silvia Guimaraes of team Clight Salomon Atenah who won the race in 2002. She is returning with an all girls teams who hope to show the guys how it is done. Raid The North Extreme Champions, EADS of France will be among the favourites too, and The North Face from the UK are strong paddlers and will aim to get off to a fast start on the water … and then stay ahead.
It could be anyone’s race and is sure to have many twists and turns. SleepMonsters will be carrying reports and pictures of all the action, and as the race has teams from all around the world you’ll be able to see the reports on any of the SleepMonsters sites.
Jon Brooke is our reporter on the scene, who’ll be tracking the progress of the teams, and photographer Nick Gregory will be sending back pictures of what promises to be a visually spectacular, and exceptionally tough, race.
SleepMonsters
