A Strong Field at the European Champs

Rob Howard / 29.04.2014

One of the teams at the Lycian Challenge described the competition as the best in Europe since the World Championships at Raid in France.  Although most would agree that Team adidas Terrex from the UK are the race favourites, it is still a very open race with a lot of very experienced and ambitious teams on the start line.

Adidas Terrex are by far the top team from the AR World rankings, currently ranked 5^th. They finished 3^rd= in the last world champs and are consistent podium and top 5 finishers in ARWS races, so they’ll be a marked team, the team to beat. As current British and former World Champs they are going for the full set and like most of the competitive teams at the race will find the paid for World Champs entry a significant incentive. T

heir team comprises regular competitors Nick Gracie and Tom Gibbs (navigator and tactician), Chris Hope, who has raced with them before, and Sally Ozanne, who previously raced with team Mountain Hardwear (finishers in the past two World Champs). They will like the race format too, which is similar to that used in Portugal when they won the World Champs.

In total there are 24 teams entered, from Turkey, Denmark, Holland, Russian, Spain, Estonia, France, Czech Republic, the UK and Ireland, so it is a good entry from around Europe. There is only one Turkish team, I guess because they felt they didn’t have the experience to compete, but it is a pity as the course is designed to allow all standards to push to their limits.

There are 5 teams each from Denmark and the Czech Republic, and 2 each from the UK, Russia, Spain and France.  Almost all the teams say they’ve not raced in Turkey before and those who have warn the navigation can be tricky on old maps. Pavel Kurz, the navigator for the Salomon-Suunto/OpavaNet/Accom team raced Lycian Challenge last year and says he hopes this will be a small advantage. They have Dagmar Sverakova on the team in only her second ever adventure race, but are confident she can do well, and hope to go for a top 5 place.

Another Czech team, Klacky.cz, also race last year, and they took 4^th. “It was fun and heaps of experience with weather, blurred maps, steep mountains and great local people,” said Dejna Odvodyova. She added, “All 3 of my team mates are good with the maps but we were lost for 9 hours in the race!”

Another Czech team with lots of experience are Team Ultramarine, led by Pavel Paloncy, who has already won The Spine Race in the UK this year, and who has just returned from racing in China. His team have raced in 10 ARWS events but only in this exact line up once, at the Czech AR Race 2013, where they were second. The team is made up of Paloncy, Simona Karochova, and Dan and Filip Silar and they are hoping to make the podium.

Another team just back from China are the Estonian ACE Adventure Team of silver & Rain Eensaar, Timmo Tammamae and Srak Svobodna. They are well travelled and say, “We’ve raced in many races over the last years and reached a level where we can go out with podium ambitions and with no fear of running out of stamina. It is going to be a hard race with lots of strong teams, so we are a bit humble but excited to race in Turkey.”

The Estonians have been regular travellers to Denmark to race and were at the Merrell Kong Vinter earlier in the year, so they will know many of the Danish racers.  Of these Merrell Denmark and Skandia Adventure are the best known and most experienced.  Skandia have Finnish racer Petri Forsman on the team (also recently back from a successful race in China).

The Dutch Adventure team were only formed last September and they are ambitious to create a consistent Dutch team, rather than just one pulled together for particular events. They plan regular camps and training, and a full programme of races. They are led by Wouter-Dirk Huitzing and as a new team will measure themselves against this opposition and said, “We hope to complete the full race course, with a full team and a big smile.”

Irish team Beast of Ballyhoura/Roe Valley are led by captain and navigator Peter Cole, who says he “just wants to keep the team safe and complete the course, after which everything else will be a bonus.”

Endurancelife of the UK are all very experienced and are led by Sabrina Verjee, who recently finished Godzone with the Merrell team (although she didn’t start with them!)

This team has two women, as they are also joined by Uli Fuhrmann who is a 6x Ironman triathlete and races with Polish squad Team 360 often. She is also a mother of 4.  Another team to buck the male domination of teams are the Russian Arena team, an all-female team led by Irina Safronova.

Other experienced teams I’ve not spoken to are the Spanish Buff Adventure Addicts, led by Fran Costoya, and Marek Navratil’s Salomon/Suunto-Nutrend CZ AR Team.  Marek is the driving force and organiser behind the European Series so all those taking part can the thankful for his efforts to pull the series and championship together.

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