Aussie orienteers start Adventure Racing World Championships in Tasmania.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
The Adventure Racing World Championships start today (Wed 2nd
Nov) in Burnie, Tasmania. 80 teams of 4 are taking part in the multi-day race
which will cover a 733km
circuit with 52 checkpoints of Tasmanian coastline,
bush and mountain in the rugged and beautiful North-West of the island. The winning team is expected to take 6 or 7 days!
With the strongest possible line up of teams, coming from every continent, the
race is sure to be closely contested and to test teams to the limit. Many orienteers are taking part, and I’ve
tried to list them all below. Again there will be great Aussie – NZ rivalry,
with 2011 WOC foot orienteering representatives Chris Forne, Robbie Preston and
Aaron Prince leading their no 2, no 3 and no 9 ranked teams respectively.
However, like the Melbourne Cup, any “runner or team” has a chance of winning.
The race
includes various trekking, mt biking, kayaking, and coasteering legs. It also involves a caving section where
the organiser states “anyone afraid of confined spaces ... is going to be very
afraid.” Also on the “menu” is a clay shooting challenge; rafting; a waterfall
abseil and canyoning section at Reynolds Falls. Plus a 75km paddle stage on the
Arthur River with 12km of trekking along the way to find CP’s in the nearby pristine
Tarkine forest. The highest point on the
race will be on Black Bluff. The
planners are confident teams will be very surprised at how long it takes to get
to checkpoints in the Tasmanian bush!
A preview of the race is on SleepMonsters and from Nov. 1st daily news, reports
and photos can be found here (Video,
tracking and the leaderboard will be on www.arwc2011.com) Supporters can check on individual team pages for
photos, blog comments and send messages of support.
2 Seagate Chris Forne (NZ)
3 TeamBlackheart Rob Preston
9 Silva Aaron Prince (NZ)
22 Cyanosis Nick Mulder (South Africa)
29 iadventure Seb Dunne, Danielle
Winslow
30 its all good Kath Copland, Brett
Sparkes
35 Mt Designs Gary Sutherland
46 City Bike Depot Kathryn
Ewels, Sergey Kurov
47 Hardtale Steve Todkill, Maria Plyashenko, & Matt Bacon
48 Kauri Coasters Jon Sutcliffe
50 Brat Ingrid
Stengard (Finland)
57 Dancing Pandas Thorlene
Egerton
66 Mawson Ricky Thackray
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