ADVENTURE RACING
Orienteers prove too good in TEVA Adventure Race
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cold Sunday morning last October saw nearly 200 competitors take part in the 3rd Teva Adventure Series race in Macedon Ranges. Teams made up of three competitors confronted a 7km foot orienteering course, a 25km MTB-O course, a 1km run up Mt. Macedon and several novelty events. Team Silva made up of highly ranked Mountain Bike orienteers, Adrian Jackson and Alex Randall and evergreen Jim Russell crossed the finish line in 3hrs 47min - way ahead of the next placegetters in the Men’s section. To prove that orienteers excel in adventure type races where navigation is part of the challenge, a VOA girls team of Jasmine Neve, Kathryn Ewels and Kirsten Fairfax finished miles ahead in the Women’s section and third overall beating all but Team Silva and one other men’s team. An amazing achievement after their 2nd place in the world rogaining championships.
CityChase returns to Sydney
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rban adventurers from Australia and around the world are gearing up for the return of CityChase to Sydney on 17th March, when the city will once again be turned into a giant obstacle course to kick off the first leg of the largest urban adventure competition on earth. CityChase was created and launched in Canada in 2004. The concept made an immediate impact on the country, expanding to a national event series in Canada’s nine largest cities in 2005, and the competition was turned into a successful, national prime-time TV series. The 2007 Volvo CityChase is a part urban obstacle course, part scavenger hunt race that is open to anyone over the age of 18, and features teams of two racing around the city to complete a series of unique physical, mental, and humorous challenges and return to the finish line in the fastest time. Specific plans are strictly under wraps, but previous races have pushed competitors to their physical and mental limits, including everything from eating live crickets, to swinging on a flying trapeze, to jumping out of a plane at over 10,000 feet. Although the sport of urban adventure racing is relatively new to Australia, the winners of the inaugural 2006 Volvo CityChase, Ben Rattray and Andrew Hill, went on to upset nine other teams from across the globe to win the CityChase World Championships, held over 33 hours across 30km of the city of Chicago. “Australians have proven their enthusiasm for this unique style of urban adventure racing and the response we received from the first Australian event is proof that there is a huge demand for this type of activity as an alternative to more traditional events like marathons,” says Nick Jelinek, the Canadian creator of the CityChase concept. “We are expecting as many as 500 teams to sign up for a chance to represent Australia at the World Championships to be held in a mystery city against the respective champions from Canada, England, France, USA, Singapore and Portugal.”
28 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER MARCH 2007
Kirsten Fairfax, Kathryn Ewels and Jasmine Neve finished miles ahead in the Women’s section and third overall in the TEVA Adventure race
Team Silva: Jim Russell, Adrian Jackson and Alex Randall, comfortable winners in the TEVA Adventure race
