ARWC - The Final Rankings & Race Director Report

Liga Outdoor / 02.12.2015

After one week of the end of the Adventure Race World Championship we are pleased to announce the final ranking. 

To come with what we believe is the fairest ranking possible we spent the last week checking all time sheets, YB tracking, reading and analyzing emails with clarifications and requests, talking and discussing with staff, medical team, ARWS organizers and other race organizers. 

I know its hard job to keep every team happy with the results, however we do we believe this is a very honest final ranking taking all into consideration. 

I don’t believe we need to go over all the challenges we faced organizing the race in a unique place as Pantanal, dealing with extreme heat, slow race and ending up with some short cuts, since we, organizers, and all teams were there to experience and see with their own eyes. 

Yep, we apologize, the statistics were miscalculated. We learned that the times of the reccies are not a good reference - at least not in Pantanal where everything can change in couple of days or even hours. 

With all that said, this is how we calculated the race time for all the teams: 

1. Top teams are the ones that have gone longer on the course as it was planned. 
2. Calculating race time until CP17. = Elapsed time 1
3. Calculating race time from signing in CP20. = Elapsed time 2
4. Times 1 and 2 were added. 
5. Teams that got caught in the ferry had the time deducted. 
6. Race time finished in CP30. 

We also want to clarify some rules and the rumors caused about not following the rules. 
All races have their own rules, but there is ONE rule for all races: 

- That the Race director can change the rules whenever it is necessary - especially when it involves risk and the safety and lives of all racers and/or organizers. Our first rule is safety first. 

11. Race-Specific Rules. Each race may have specific rules for that occasion only. Where there is a conflict of rules, the race-specific rules will take precedence.

This means that on this race, IV was allowed. And there were no doubts about it. Staff, doctors and even press knew it. 
As we know, this was a brutal race under extreme heat. We wanted teams racing well and not dying from dehydration in the middle of the swamp. We knew it was wild and help could take long to arrive. 

The above applies for the rule governing the use of the Yellowbricks. Many teams used the YB to send messages. From missing checkpoints to asking about the mud situation on the road. We could have DQ at least 6 teams… however this was a different race, and we are dealing with people, during hard times and on survival mode. So we didn’t do it. 

According to this rule, we can give penalties for helping a team to get out of danger:
1.1. If a team requires the race organization, another team in the competition, or civil emergency services to rescue one or all team members from a real and imminently dangerous situation, then that team will be penalized. [YELLOW]/ [RED]

Actually, being lifted by an airplane is also a big help! And wasn’t even foreseen in the rules!

Making a long story short… we had a hard race, organized by optimistic crazy ones, in an amazing place and 22 teams crossing the finish line. 

It is also important to point out that team Seagate was the only one to complete the race full course, including the rope section and the last mtb loop. With a time gap of 17-hours to the second team.

We really appreciate your comprehension and patience. We are sorry for the unfortunate mistakes but you bet we learn a lot from them. 

Congratulations to all athletes! 

As Louise Foulkes said: “There were obviously some problems with the time/ length estimates for teams causing the various short courses, and a heat wave, but the race will definitely go down in AR legend and teams who raced here will wear their ARWC Pantanal experiences like badges of honor for the rest of their lives."

All the best, 

LIGA OUTDOOR TEAM­

See All Stories On This Race