Who is Racing at the first China X-Trail Expedition Race?

Rob Howard / 12.08.2016

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There has been a buzz around the AR community about the new expedition race launched in China as an ARWS exhibition event in September. Just competing at a true expedition race in China would be exciting enough (it’s the first), then the location is in the far North of China in a mountain region bordered by Russia and Mongolia, there is some big prize money, supported entry and limited entry. The question everyone has been asking is who got this hot ticket?

SleepMonsters has now had an exclusive look at the much sought after team list and we can reveal there are 26 international teams, among them some of the world’s best and a real mix of nationalities.

The headliners in terms of the ARWS rankings are Adventure Medical Kits, Tecnu, Estonian ACE Adventure and Haglofs Silva – all strong teams who will be aiming for top spot, but it’s unlikely they will have it all their own way.  There are several other strong Scandinavian teams of which the most experienced by far are Multisport.fi, and it’s not surprising to see many ‘New Zealand’ teams too.

The Kiwis have had a close relationship with racing in China over many years (and the prize money has helped fun Kiwi entries elsewhere for many years too). The most experienced of these are ‘Team New Zealand and a Little French’ – the ‘little French’ being World Champion racer Jackie Boisset, another veteran of the Chinese stage race circuit. (There is another World Champ on the team – Marcel Hagener, and two more on other teams – Benjamin Medina and Petri Forsman.)

The MDK Adventure Russia team are experienced and probably the nearest to home, there is a strong Australian entry and from Europe teams from the UK, Denmark, Czech Republic and Italy. (Yes, the ‘Italian Adventure Racer’ Marco Ponteri has got together another team.)  It will be no surprise the Czech team is lead by Pavel Paloncy, who laughed when I asked if he was a full time racer … but he seems to be at every race we report on! (He’s in Ireland for ITERA next week.)

Not all the teams are elite contenders, some are there for the experience, and at this stage we know nothing of the Chinese entry – however they’ve had many years of stage race and some international experience now, so who knows if a Chinese powerhouse AR team will emerge?

The full team list is published below and we’ll keep you posted on the news as we get it.

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