Tomorrow, Saturday 14th of November, is the start of the Adventure Racing World Championship in Pantanal, Brazil. Team Haglöfs Silva will be represented by Aaron, Josefina, Mattias and Robert.
World Championship in Brazil has gathered 32 teams from 15 different countries in Curumbia, Pantanal. Pantanal is the world’s biggest flooded area – so it is sometimes flooded and, in other times, dry. This will make the navigation tough and probably also add a lot of tactics to the race! Last days Curumbia have had temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius and it has been very humid.Very different from Sweden, especially in November!
The race will start at 1 PM (local time) Saturday 14th, cover 715 km bird’s way, and winning team is expected to cross finish line after 5-6 days of racing, day and night. For this race there are no rules regarding sleep, dark zones or rest, every decision regarding if, how much and when to rest is to be taken by the teams.
The water stages represent 48% of the course this year! In addition to kayaking with two person sit-on-top kayaks, teams will also use inflatable pack rafts. The pack rafting sections of the race will probably contain deciding route choices where they have to choose between inflating our pack rafts or continue trekking in the wetland. Another unusual piece of mandatory equipment this year is a 14” machete, indicating that the vegetation will be thick in places.
To reach the starting point, teams will travel overnight on a naval boat up the Paraguay River for 12 hours. At this location, there are no roads. All logistics for the few people who live here and the race is by boat or air. Later in the race there will be two mountain bike stages, hopefully they have reached trails or roads at this point.
In some parts of the race teams will wade through shallow water and here it is mandatory to have a trekking pole. The pole is to be used to disturb the water in front of us and scare away stingrays. If stood on these rays have a venomous sting. Teams have also received detailed instructions about how to react if we encounter African Swarming Bees. The area also has all the other usual creepy crawlies that might be expected such as anacondas, alligators, jaguars, Catetos (pigs), piranhas and giant otters. Racers have received instructions about how to react in encounters with these animals but the organisation believes they shouldn’t present a danger. The largest risk is likely to be from less spectacular things such and stomach bugs, mosquito bites and infected wounds.
You can follow the race on the live tracking on www.arwcpantanal.com.
We will also try to keep our Facebook page updated with photos and post about our progress: www.facebook.com/TeamHaglofsSilva
Adventure Racing Game
Pick the leaderboard, route choices and more each day! Information follows:
The ARWC Live Coverage team have just released a new feature for this years live site that we feel must come with a warning.
CAUTION: If you tend to suffer from “dot watching syndrome” while the ARWC is on then you might need to avoid the new ARWC Fantasy League. It is guaranteed to further increase you preoccupation with dots, route choices and everything AR. Your judgement on day to day activities will be further impaired as you will likely be obsessed on what your teams doing out there, decisions they are making and whether they still deserve to be in your top picks as their progress will affect your standing in the league leaderboard.
Of course alternately, if you do decide to join in, this is a marvellous way to channel some of that excess restless energy created by watching dots, into something that more useful than yelling directions at the screen.
The basic premise is you choose the 5 teams that you think will be in the lead. At the end of each day of the race at 8pm, points are awarded based on how many you have correct and where they are ranked at this time. Points go on to accumulate until the end of the race. You can see your progress in comparison to other players at any time on the League leaderboard. (This page is going to get a work out).
To make it more interesting, there is an A group and a B group, and you must choose 5 teams from each. The A group has the top ranked teams in the world to choose from. The B group has the remainder.
There are a bunch of rules on the web site that explain changing your picks mid race and when teams are “locked in” for the following day. It sounds confusing, but once your in, it is pretty easy.
So, quite seriously, register now for this great new adventure racing experience. After registering, go to My League to pick your teams and get the ball rolling.