Raid International Gaspesie
An International Gathering in Gaspesie
07.09.2016
Teams will register today for the annual Raid International Gaspesie in the beautiful coastal resort town of Carlton Sur Mer on Canada’s South East coast.
Gaspesie (sometimes shown as Gaspe on maps) is a peninsula between the mighty Saint Lawrence river to the north and the U.S .border to the south. With its extensive mountain ranges (including the wonderfully named Chic-Choc mountains), forests, waterfalls, coast and cliffs, it's one of Quebec’s most popular tourist areas and in the past few years the Endurance Aventure organisation have established their race here as one of the premier multisport races in the world.
With a combination of slick organisation, strong local support and involvement (which is so often lacking in adventure racing) and with plenty of scope for impressive courses, the race attracts teams from around the world. Many come back each year knowing the course will be completely different to the previous year. If you find Gaspesie on the map it looks like a small peninsula but Canada is a big place ... and Gaspesie is the size of Belgium!
This year the race has competitors from 13 different countries (Canada, Colombia, Estonia, China, Ireland, France, Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Switzerland, South Africa, USA) making up the 70 teams taking part. These are split between the 150km and 300km courses, which take place over 3 days of racing, with overnight camps between. The race is for pairs and teams of 4, who have a support crew to assist them. Most of the international teams are taking part in the 300km event.
The live race site is up and running at http://www.raidinternationalgaspesie.com/raid-wpmu/en/ - in both French and English and you can see the full team lists there and the details of the race programme. This includes a prologue on Thursday, where 200 local teenagers will be racing, and the main race takes place on Fri/Sat/Sunday.
(Rob Howard will be at the race for SleepMonsters providing daily reports and photo galleries during the event.)
SleepMonsters
