European Adventure Race Finals
Ireland Draws the Strongest Ever Entry to a European Champs Race
Rob Howard / 27.07.2015
Fifty teams are now making their way to Ireland for the Beast of Ballyhoura adventure race, heading for the race venue at the University of Limmerick where they will gather ahead of the race start on Thursday.
The race is hosting this year’s European Championships and has attracted the biggest entry for any expedition length race this year, with 50 teams of four taking part. Fourteen European countries are represented, a reflection of the strength of European adventure racing, and there are even two South African entries as well.
The course will run over 72 hours with the leaders expected to cover around 450km. This is the longest ever Beast, with the time and distance increased for the championship event. (It was a 40 hour race last year.) The course will include an element of tactical choice with teams having to decide how many checkpoints to go for and when to make the decision to opt for shorter options. Those who have raced the Beast before will know it’s not always best to try and complete the full course and then see what’s left at the end … Race Director Ivan Park has a habit of forcing difficult choices early on.
Park heads up the volunteer team from Causeway Coast Adventure Racing who have stepped up to organise their biggest ever event. Causeway Coast is a non-profit organisation aiming to promote adventure racing in Ireland and the small but dedicated team have found themselves taking a giant step up with far more teams entered than expected! Just about all the available sit on top kayaks in Ireland and some from the UK were drafted in to accommodate the bigger entry and the team are working flat out to deliver the race.
The entry is a strong one, as you might expect from a championship race. The favourites would have to be Team adidas TERREX from the UK, who won the European title in Turkey last year (and are the highest AR World series ranked team racing). Their line up is slightly different this time with Jo Thom replacing Sally Ozanne and the team also drafting in Stuart Lynch of Team Seagate. You couldn’t find a stronger candidate to pull into the team but they may miss master tactician Tom Gibbs in this kind of race.
The other team in the top 20 AR World Rankings are Swedish squad SWECO, who raced at ITERA last year in Wales and were in contention but unfortunately missed a checkpoint late in the race. Scandinavia has other strong entries too with Finnish team Halti Adventure and Team Yeti from Denmark lead by Thure Fuhrmann Kjaer, who has been on the winning team at The Beast before and knows the race well.
Eastern Europe is well represented too with a particularly strong contingent from the Czech Republic. This includes some of last year’s Beast winners on Team Fenix Multisport – adidas lead by Pavel Paloncy. (They won last year as Team Czech AR.) There are also 3 other Czech teams as well as Polish and Estonian teams.
Dutch Adventure who were fifth last year are back with two teams and there are entries also from France, Germany, Switzerland and Spain, plus several very experienced UK teams, so all of the strong European AR nations are represented.
There are 18 home nation teams entered in all, some of them taking on their longest ever race after moving up through the sprint, one day and two day races put on by Causeway Coast AR. Others have expedition race experience and last year it was Team Get No Sleep who were the top Irish team, finishing second. Other strong and experienced Irish teams are DAR Dingle, Outfront Events, Irish Forces AR and Moxie Racers who will all be looking for high positions and having their own friendly rivalry too.
Most of the teams will be arriving tomorrow ahead of all the race formalities and introductions on Wednesday and the race start on Thursday.
It’s going to be a closely contested race with many twists and turns and SleepMonsters will be reporting live from the course with daily updates and photo galleries throughout.
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