Wenger Czech Adventure Race 2014
JesenÃk To Welcome The Czech Adventure Race
Jan Smolik (Czech Adventure Race) / 21.08.2014
With population of just over 12,000 people the city of Jeseník is at the center of the Jeseníky moutain range and this Thursday it will host the start of 11th edition of Czech Adventure Race.
The area has mountains reaching over 1300 meters while valleys in between mountains are about 400 meters above the sea level. This locality is also known for very harsh weather. Rain and fog are a common occurrence. Even now, when the weather is relatively pleasant by local standards, night temperatures drop below ten degrees.
The high mountains promise for an interesting and tough race. There is almost 250 km of biking and more than 80 km of trekking, with no flat ground in between. There will be swimming sections in old flooded quarries with cold water and a beautiful cave.
Thirteen teams registered for the race and all of them have arrived in Jeseník. There are eight teams from the Czech Republic, two from Netherlands, one from Estonia, and two are mixed: Russia/Ukraine and Croatia/Germany.
The favorites are last year’s winners Salomon-Suunto/Nutrend/S21 along with Ukrainian/Russian team MDK. Team Salomon-Suunto/Accom/OpavaNet is normally also very strong, but they don’t have their strongest composition.
This year The Czech Adventure Race is experimenting with a new format. The race will have a relatively short cut-off time of 54 hours. Most teams will not be able to complete full course in this limit as 50 hours is the expected time of the winning team.
The reason behind this is to give new teams a chance to compete in a two-night race instead of making them go through the third night.
This will have impact on the strategy of teams as they might need to skip checkpoints early in the race.
You will be able to follow the race on its website at www.adventurerace.cz/live and also in daily reports here on SleepMonsters.
SleepMonsters
