The Czech Adventure Race is Underway

Press Release / 07.09.2016

On Wednesday 10 am Wenger Czech Adventure entered its thirteenth edition. After several years of experimenting with various formats it has returned to the classic one: a linear race where you go straight ahead and whoever comes first is the winner. It has also returned to the classical length of 75 hours and approximately 500 kilometers.

Only 8 teams made it to Sušice this year. Sušice is a town in Šumava (or Böhmerwald ) a mountain range at the south east of the Czech Republic. This year’s edition will be especially hilly as the competitors will often find themselves climbing from 600 meters above sea level to roughly 1100 meters.  It is an area with spread out villages and hamlets as if everybody wanted to live alone. Teams can expect many beautiful views.

Anyway, 31 people stood at the start line on Wednesday morning. This odd number suggests something went wrong since the very start and indeed it did. Danish team Multiatleten Racing Team has already started as incomplete as the girl from their team woke up sick. They fight hard during the day but they are unranked.

The race started with prologue around Sušice. It is called a prologue, but it consisted of three fairly regular stages. First was 20 kilometers of running around local outlooks. As these outlooks are located at high places on both sides of Otava river, the elevation gain was over 800 meters. The next part of the prologue was 20 km of inline skating at the side of the river, which was mainly a resting part. The final part of prologue was a fun part. The teams had to paddle on whatever craft they could carry around an insland. Down through the river and up through the mill race. It was kind of funny as there was not enough water and teams had to walk mostly. But some of them managed to float.

After all this fun a regular biking stage started. It led to Javorník, which is one of those places 1100 meters high and to the orienteering section. It took almost an hour to get from bottom to the top of the mountain as the climb was in the rough terrain. The orienteering section was also hard and the fastest team to complete managed it in two hours.

As expected team Salomon-Suunto Czech Adventure Team took an early lead and managed to keep it during the day. After the orienteering stage they were already two hours ahead of any pursuers. Behind them a strong pack formed. EPO OjOj, Polish AR Poznan Junior, EXIT Team and Danish Multiatleten are racing head to head and are within minutes of each other. The race is very tough between them.

You can follow the race live on www.adventurerace.cz/live and here on Sleepmonsters.

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