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Adventure stories for the hot sommer days |
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Adventure race Slovenia, 4th edition. Stories written by adventure are a special moment every year. They look a like at first, but they all have something special inside them, something that makes them unique and unforgetable. This years' race is no exception.
It's hard to describe a view in an early friday morning when 71 men and women were preparing their last details for their test of endurance and strength. You have to know how to pack your gear correctly so it will be reachable at every stage of the race. And while most of normal people were still sleeping, the competitors of ARS 2006 headed to the start in the centre of Velenje.
Every begining is hard
Gathering at the Tito square in the city centre is full of expectations every year before the start. More tha usuall abount of that was surely present by the French team Decathlon Nice who couldn't find the right place in this adventure race. The boys (the were only 3, unranked) have given up way before any other team. And while the French team already left Velenje on Saturday, the race had just fairly begun.
Interesting race course
This years' race can be praised by an interesting novelty – considering previous years there was less trekking. Competitors that had complained about too much trekking stages in previous years, were all smiling this years as they enjoyed the race very much.
On 270 kilometers of the race they had to cope with mountain biking, trekking, alpine trekking, caving, swimming, cayaking, canyoning and rope ascending/descening.
All teams were satisfiead by the diversity of disciplines. Michija Hochenwarter , the team leader of winning team Nike ACG Squad, said that this was the most beautiful race ever for him. We think that's more than good proof that we've made a nice race.
A certain victory
Every previous ARS race hosted a team that won with a certain advantage before other teams. And it was the same this year. Between 18 teams from 8 different countries (Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland, France, Netherlands, Austria, Greece and Finland) the Austrian team Nike ACG was ahead of everybody. They were an austrijan-finish team with following members: Mario Bürger, Veronika Swidrak, Michi Hochenwarter and Mikko Vehmas. They took the lead right after the first CP and kept it till the finish. They were really happy to finish the race on first place, even for the reason that they didn't finish the race at all last year.
In the background
The winners were really fantastic, but the true stories usually happend somewhere else, somewhere in the background, far away from the best teams. The fight against yourself was best seen at italian competitor Marco Pontieri. He made it to the finishline with a fairly ugly ankle injury. A lot of unluck also fallen to the slovenian team Polaris and their team member Valter Foski who disclocated his arm when falling with his bike on the first day. They had to continue with only 3 team members and if they would've finished complete, they would've fighted for the best 3 places. But surely every team has its own story written over the most beautiful slovenian terrains. And every team achieved its victory, they reached the limits of their strength and endurance.
Euroadventure cup
Adventure race Slovenia is included in Euroadventure.net cup and was a third race to be held this year. Another 3 are coming next in the following months. Interesting, that a captain of the 4th ranked team on ARS is also a race director of Old Spice Adventure race in Czech Republic. http://www.euroadventure.net/
In the new victories!
After every event we have to draw a line and find out what was wrong and what was OK. Organisers agreed that they did a really good job. The competitors were more satisfied than in previous years and they all (except the French team) made it to the finish. And that is also a suignificant wish of all organisers of Adventure race Slovenia – satisfied competitors. Offcourse we hope they will return next year. The organiser is Lake Dragon Scout Group from Velenje. Their next project will be Maribor City Adventure in Maribor on 7th October 2006.
Results:
1. Nike ACG Squad (AUT)
2. Tilak/OpavaNET team (CZE)
3. adventureteam.si (SLO)
4. Salomon/Nutrend (CZE)
5. napieraj.pl (POL)
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