Adventure racing

Adventure racing (or racing extreme) is a team sport of several disciplines including: Orienteering and navigation; mountain biking; canoeing; field gear; mountain climbing; (or other techniques associated with climbing rope) and line skates. Depending on the place and time the sport may also include: cross-country skis; runs in snowshoeing; horseback riding; rafting; canoeing and many others.

An important feature of adventure races is that during the competition there are no mandatory breaks (not counting those caused by safety considerations, the so-called dark zones).

Players themselves decide when and how much they will rest, and the fact that the professions should be self-sufficient (bring the whole required equipment and food with you). Since this discipline was adopted, the team must consist of a number of people (usually four), with at least one person of the opposite sex (mixed teams).

History

It is difficult to accurately determine the time of the creation of adventure races in the world in such form as we know it today. Some of the AR precursor considers it a two-day competition Karrimor International Mountain Marathon, held since 1968 in the UK.

The rivalry lay in the fact that the double teams travelled twice the distance of a marathon in navigating through mountainous terrain and carrying all the necessary equipment. In 1980, there were games played during which participants had to run, paddle and move on skis to the finish.

Later that same year, the Alpine Ironman inventor, Robin Judkins organized more games – Coast To Coast. More and more similar to modern adventure races, these competitions consisted of running, mountain biking and canoeing.

But the most famous rally is the Raid Gauloises. The first edition of the plays in 1989 in New Zealand was inspired by the most famous formula of the spacer in the world rally car that is the Paris-Dakar rally. Director of the competition, Gerald Fusil, created in this way, an expanded expeditionary raid, which contained all the elements known at the present adventure races – Mixed team had to overcome more than 600km of challenging terrain.

In 1991, in New Zealand the next rally took place, inspired by the Raid Gauloises, Southern Traverse. It has become synonymous with AR and today is one of the most prestigious events in the world.

The next step in the development of AR was the Eco-Challenge games (1995) by media mogul Mark Burnett. Thanks to very good films in competition (the Emmy) music has become much more popular. These games also introduced into general circulation, the term race to describe adventure sports. The Last edition of the Eco-Challenge was played in 2002.