The ‘Dark Zone Of Adventure Racing’.

Mimi Guillot & Jacky Boisset - Team France / 20.11.2014

Most teams are still feeling the buzz of excitment from ARWC in Ecuador and as they get back home are taking in all their experiences and adventures. Not everyone is happy though.

It was clear Team France took issue with some of the race organisation decisions and now former World Champions Mimi Guillot and Jacky Boisset have issued a newsletter statement on their feelings about the race and the ARWS circuit. 

Here is the English text they've sent us.  (It's not their first language so has been edited to tidy up the English.)

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Hello friends, family, supporters, sponsors ... after some days of recovery I am back in real life.

I would like to thank all my team who fought until the end.  We have not done the best race result ever but we have shared an epic part of life in the wilds of Ecuador. We have created new feeling for each other and accomplished an unbelievable adventure which I will never forget.

Now about the race ... I won’t mention all the moments when everything was rosy and went well because everybody knows about that. And I'm lying if I tell you that we didn't have those moments too.

What I would like to explain now is the ‘dark zone of adventure racing’ and why adventure racing has so many problems to be recognized as a real sport.

To set the scene I’ll give you some details about the investment we have to make to be ready for D-Day, and I am not speaking only for my team or for top teams but for all the teams who take the start line.

We all have first to find a team of 4 (with a lady), to train in all disciplines, to create some team spirit and to learn about each other at training camps, find sponsors, spend time to prepare our specific gear, spend money to buy a lot of gear which will be destroyed during the race (to cross the bush), pay the entry fee, pay hotels, excess baggage .., and be away from our family for the race and for training, away from work.  All that for the supreme goal to participate at the AR World Championships!

At this stage, we are like other high level athletes in other sports, we make some sacrifices for one goal...to participate at the ARWC. The only difference, our sport is just a sport for a few passionate people ... because our sport is not really recognized by the government, so to win this race you become a World Champion in our world but not really in the real world ;)

Anyway, when you arrive at the race you expect a professional organization which can pay back all the sacrifices. Each year, we really appreciate that the Director of the circuit asks about what we should do to step up...and it's true we can observe some progress but every year after the ARWC we hear too many teams complain.

To be honest, it's difficult to accept some massive mistakes from the organization who try every year to push further your physical and psychological limits but at the same time forget the essentials of the race. When you are athletes, you have to follow some rules but why is it not the same for an organization?

During ARWC Ecuador, for our team, it was a professional race until we arrived at the end of the second trekking section, where we received a penalty.

In my mind it is very strange to put a penalty to 40+ teams and only 3 teams don’t have the penalty. Any young kid will resolve this problem and say “maybe the rules were not clear enough” !!!

We have read the rules again, and for sure it wasn’t clear. A track was compulsory but there was no start of the compulsory track and no end of the following track. During the safety speech, the organization had insisted on the fact we can’t cross the river without a bridge. So we have respect this rule.

We did not agree with this penalty and wrote a request to the jury to cancel this ‘stupid’ penalty which gives an advantage to only one team who will become World Champions.

So we were very not happy on the next section because we really feel something was not fair and have talked a lot about this situation. When you are racer you have to feel confident about the decisions of the race, and only in this situation can you give your best.

Anyway, this first decision has been taken so now we have to keep going ...  to just follow the rules of the race and to serve the penalty at TA9 as written in the rules. The organization then made a 2nd mistake and decided to change the transition where the penalty has to be served. In the road book it was clear, penalties will be served in TA9 ... so at the end of the race.

So why the change? And when an important rule changes without the racers being informed, how can the racers can still trust in the organization ... because it means the organization has spent 1 year to prepare their race and the rules, and at the last second during the race they change it all!

We arrive at the TA5 were they would like to give us the 4h penalty.

We were surprised because nobody told us really about the penalty, so we thought that our request to cancel it was accepted. (And it's true that we saw one team sleep here.)

We are back in the race, we do a fast transition get ready on our bikes in 1h and when we are ready to press on to the paddle ... then the guy from the organization told us “you have  to do your penalty!”

You can imagine the level of stress we had at that moment. We started to argue and ask why nobody told us before, why no answer about our protest?  Why, why, too many questions with no answers ... The only answer is: ”If you leave now you are disqualified.” Like we are criminals!

We had already given back all our boxes, so we slept on the ground to serve 3 more hours of the penalty. The worst is not the penalty but how it happens.

We had no real information from the organization and the worst point is they have changed the fundamental rules of the race - just because the team Captain who put the protest in is very a powerful speaker and the jury is weak against him.

The jury has to be strong and take good decisions.

So, in the rules they say; “all penalties will be served at the last transition”, to have no impact on the race, I suggest.

Now they have moved the penalty of 4h to just before a turning point of the race: the river section.

It is very difficult to pass the dark zone (no paddling between 18h30 and 5h30) - we know that from the start, and we know also that not many teams will pass this in time. When you race for the podium or first place it is strategic to go faster at the start to be more relaxed for the rest.

Our team was in the window to pass the dark zone but with the penalty we were not.

So after the penalty we had a lot of stress just because we were robbed by the organization. It was clear they put this in place to slow down all the teams behind the first.

So we have to push hard on the bikes, we have run hard before the kayaking, we have to jump in the kayaks, we have forget a little bite to eat to save time and with a bit of luck we make it by 5 minutes.

In fact, all the stress and energy, the riding energy we have put in this race against the clock to stay on our strategic plan for first place will cost our team a lot by the end of the race.

I have forgotten to say, the 4h penalty it is more than lost time ... We have slept during the day (which isn’t as good as sleeping during the night), we had (unfortunately) rain straight at the start and the other teams we are against have ridden on dry terrain, they also have ridden 4h more in the daylight, which is a good advantage.

Adventure Racing is about the thousands of parameters we have to keep in mind to lose less time and move more quickly. We tried to organize our race like this but when we had a stupid roadblock (like the penalty in the wrong TA) it started to become a big mess !

So we have finished the race not so well and had several physical problems in our team.

But the last joke was at the finish line ...

All the photographers and organization were at the finish point of the kayak to follow us on foot for the last 4 kms to walk across the finish line.

The organization told us ‘relax and enjoy the last km, the next team is 2 hours behind!’ 

What good news!  So we have take our time to give some photoshoots to the photographers because in my mind it's the part of the deal. We have to help them get good coverage even if we are tired, to promote our sport.

The only problem, they have taken too much of our time and just 50m from the finish line the Tecnu team pass us running like crazy people.

I am sure they have not taken time to do some photos ... anyway once again I can say we were robbed by the journalists and the organisation.

Apparently the organization has asked Tecnu to rank us at the same position and they have refused.

How come a team can say NO when they know the story.  There is no glory to catch a place like that. If they want to be proud to be 4th they have to run faster before not on the last 50m of the race.

And how come the organization had to ask to the other team to agree? The organization knows they have made a mistake because they have talked to us to apologize, so why didn’t they just inform the team and give us back our normal ranking?

So once again ... we can't accept this mistake!

Anyway, I think I am done with these kind of races. There is no respect for the racer and when you are professional athlete you can't continue at races which are not serious like these ones. I have tried my best the last few years to promote such races because I'm passionate, because I believed in this amazing sport, but unfortunately I feel they are not going in a good way...

I know that you will think it’s too much and I have lost control, but this result isn’t the only reason for my thinking, I have too many stories to confirm the lack of seriousness of this ARWS circuit.

For example :

There are some teams who come just to finish the race and they have trained so hard all the year round and made many investments and sacrifices ... those little teams are the cement of the organization because without them the circuit couldn’t survive.

To be clear, without their money the ARWS circuit is over!

What is the best way to disappoint them? The organization has moved forward the cut off time and many teams were cut after the 1st section. After that they have wait 2 days, because the ‘elite teams’ have to be first and they then had other cut-offs further on the course because they start late again and they are slower!

So they have done only 30% of the race, they can’t say they are a finisher, they haven’t seen so many places except the transition areas ... no more comment. I am pissed off !!!!

And another example: We raced Godzone 2 years ago. During the race the organization lost our gear boxes ... yes I know bad luck ... but anyway, at the end of the race we asked them what we do now? And the answer from them ... "It’'s not our problem, the racers are responsible of their own gear and have to have insurance"! Yes, I'm not joking!

The conclusion, all the teams pay so much in entry fees because it's so expensive and in fact they have no insurance and this is the minimum to provide when you are an organization.  

And another example: during the race, we have to find CP, and you have to punch a control card and sometimes take pictures ... and imagine, it's the World Championship and no one has asked me after we crossed the finish line to show the pictures and the control card! How can we consider these races serious?

No more, because it will start to be boring...and now it's time to step up and keep going in another way. I have lost too much energy and my mind to try to help this sport. Now I have to be focused on my future.

Don't worry I'm still an adventure racer and I will still race because I love to give my best. It's just that my team we will be more focused on the other races where you can really use your fitness.

Thanks a lot for your support, thanks to all my sponsors...

And let's look for new adventures ...

Have a nice day :)

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