Wenger Czech Adventure Race
The Wenger Czech Adventure Race is Ready to Go
Jan Smolik (Czech Adventure Race) / 26.08.2015
In 2005, the second edition of Czech Adventure Race took place in Dobronice and only five teams were able to finish the course due to flooding and wet terrain … a And also due to inexperience of the teams with such races and conditions. Ten years later the Wenger Czech Adventure race is returning to Dobronice and we will see if more teams can finish the race and if the weather will be better..
The race starts Thursday at 10:00 a.m. with no prologue but a simple trekking stage with a skating section.
Things could not be more different from ten years ago. In 2005 the Lužnice River was wild due to the high state of the water. The land was soaking wet. Now the river is on the limit of navigability due to drought. The land is also dry and even recent rains did not leave much mark on it. There are less teams but much more cumulative experience.
The Wenger Czech Adventure race has changed its format recently, and now the time limit of the race is 55 hours which will force most of the teams to miss some checkpoints. It is up to the teams to decide which checkpoints they will collect. The only rule is they have to collect checkpoints in their numeric order and cannot return to the previous ones.
However, not everything can be shortened. The dominant stage of the first day of the race will be a 55 kilometers long paddling stage. It will be an ordeal to paddle on a slow flowing river that has almost no water. And because it is a river there are not many places for shortcuts. Luckily some checkpoints are marked on orienteering maps on the both banks of the river which will allow competitors a quick run and stretch. There is also a climbing section and via ferrata during this stage.
There are three inline-skating sections during the race. Good skaters will gain a huge advantage. The first skating section will bring teams to the river. The second one is part of the night biking stage that follows the paddling and it will bring teams to České Vrbné, where the first ever Czech Adventure Race took place. A lot of nostalgia this year.
The most action packed section will be a 35 kilometer long trekking stage. There are three special tasks: our signature event of “Bolscross” (running in gullies, water, rocks, etc.), abseil, and via ferrata. On the other hand there are no special tasks on a long (120 km) biking stage. We expect most teams to cut it short due to time constraints.
The grand finale of the race will be a long ascent on skates and two points-packed orienteering stages (bike and foot). These will be hard to avoid as there are many points in a very small area.
The main favorites of the race are Russian-Ukrainian team MDK along with three internationally experienced Czech teams: BlackHill/OpavaNet, Salomon/Suuntu and Fenix Multorsport/Adidas.
You can follow the race and tracking at http://www.adventurerace.cz/drupal/ and we'll have reports as the race unfolds here on SleepMonsters.
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