Official Announcement - Expedition Africa 2016

Press Release / 21.05.2016

­Earlier today an official written complaint was lodged disputing team Featherbed Painted Wolf's capture of CP 17. The local team lead the 500km adventure race, gaining time on their lead throughout the event.

Unfortunately the team identified checkpoint 17 as a misplacement or stolen after searching for 15minutes, and took a photograph of the location as suggested by the race director; Stephan Muller at race briefing.

Expedition Africa as an event applies by the Adventure Racing World Series (ARWS) rules and regulations, and based on these rules Muller gave the team an option of either collecting the CP before the finish or suffering a 6 hour penalty to their final race time. Muller noted that the team would therefore suffer a 2 hour penalty by collecting the checkpoint as they would have to go off course to collect it.

According to the team's checkpoint passport received as they crossed the finish line, they managed to collect the outstanding checkpoint.

An official meeting took place at 20h00 at Pine Lake Marina, where captains of the top ten teams competing in Expedition Africa met with Muller and a jury to finalise the dispute. After three hours of rule discussions and opinions shared on what the correct decision was to make, the jury released a verdict that four votes to one shared in Muller's decision and race directive, receiving a penalty of two hours.

This decision will allow Team Featherbed Painted Wolf to retain their title as the 2016 edition of Expedition Africa winners.

The team will be racing at the Adventure Racing Wold Championships in Australia later this year. According to Team Featherbed Painted Wolf's captain Mark Collins, "Heidi and Stephan Muller have brought direction and structure to adventure racing in South Africa."

As teams and supporters head off to sleep, there is still one remaining team left on course. Team Tumbleweeds (RSA) are on the few lasts final legs of the race. Once they have successfully crossed the finish line,

Expedition Africa 2016 will come to a close.

Race Director; Stephan Muller announcing the jury's verdict: https://youtu.be/4oQtdxvBp7w

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