Thule adventure team finishes 125-hour race

Thule Adventure Team

After more than five days and five nights, in a long tough race of more than 125 hours, Thule Adventure Team reached the finishing line in the 2010 Adventure Race World Championship on Friday October 8. They ended up in 7th place a strong effort by the team, competing with 52 other multi-sport teams. The local team Buff Thermocool won the race, just as expected.

The Adventure Race World Championship, ARWC, is internationally recognized as one of the toughest and most important multi sport races of the world. It started off in the city of Avila with sprint orienteering, and the race finished in the same way in the city of Salamanca.

Between the two cities, the 700 km race consisted of mountain biking to 22 different legs of trekking, paddling, inline skating and rope sections. The longest trekking leg was 34 km and the longest mountain bike leg 75 km. During one part of the race the teams had to split in two, where half of the team ran and the other half paddled, and then they met and switched to go back the same distance. This was followed by late night kayaking of 78 km.

The challenges of this race included the changing weather from sunny and 20 degrees to cold, rainy and stormy , very hilly ground with steep uphill and downhill parts, and a lot of navigation also during dark hours. Not to mention the big challenge to stay awake and race both day and night!

In the ARWC 2010, Thule Adventure Team competed with a team consisting of team captain Martin Flinta and three non regular team members, who are all highly qualified athletes from Finland (Petri Forsman, Janne Monanen, Outi Seppa). According to the reports we got during the race, Thule Adventure Team were in a good mood, looked strong and were fortunate enough not to have any major injuries. Still they were not part of the very lead, but most of the race part of the group of teams in places 37.

Join the Thule Adventure Team on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and visit the team website at www.thuleadventureteam.com