On Wednesday 13th of September the Nev-Dama Czech Adventure Race headquarters in Zadni Treban was waking up into a sunny day. Although the river surrounding the island where HQ was located was beautifully silent, no one had time to admire it. Everybody was busy as the start of the race was to come within few hours.

Special surprise for most teams was CP at the St. Johns monastery.

While the organizers were busy setting up starting line, building introductory city park orienteering and manning first few checkpoints, the racers were having their last real meal or were panicking over their backpacks trying not to forget anything for the first stage. Some of them just met their crewmembers for the first time. One member of CBTP team only arrived from Italy where he was on family holiday during night. Some teams were not that lucky to have all four members ready, ambitious Debra CZ lost their teammate in the evening before race when he found out he had a fever. Remaining members spent the morning persuading some of the organizers to switch sides and race with them, but they failed. Team Vysmash already arrived as a three-member team. Both teams decided to start as unclassified. Exactly at 10 am mayor of Zadni Treban sent teams into the race.

Introductory park orienteering lead trough Zadni Treban, a village with 621 inhabitants located mere 20 km from Prague that serves as recreational zone for country’s capital. It was intended just for warm up, but locals who built new houses and fences instead of roads marked in the map made it more difficult. Also selecting right time to cross busy railroad was a bit challenging. Following canoeing and in-line skating sections took teams to Prague. Team Omjakon Sweaters from Finland took advantage of their strong hands and experience from cross-country skiing and took lead. Unfortunately during the in-lines first injury occurred. A member of English High 5/Snowcard.co.uk team fell when a car honked on him, twisted his ankle and ended in hospital. When teams pulled their in-lines off they set up for a 35 kilometers long “sightseeing” trek that took them around ruins of castle Karlik, famous Karlstejn and St. John monastery. This section was reply to anybody who thought that area so close to Prague would be too easy for adventure racing. Berounka river and its affluent creeks created wide network of valleys. Although hills were not very high teams had to climb up and then descend only to go up again. There was no flat ground.

Special surprise for most teams was CP at the St. Johns monastery. Most teams arrived there, looked to the map as the checkpoint had to be very close. Then they turned to the cross, where CP was clearly visible. Unbelieving they looked at the map again to confirm what they saw. CP was mere 200 meters from where they were standing but those 200 meters were vertical rather than horizontal. The cross with checkpoint was located on the top of very high rock. Ascent on the trail that led around the rock took 15 minutes to the fastest teams but even 30 to the slower ones. But no one actually regretted the effort, as view from the top to the valleys below was magnificent – especially for teams that arrived during the sunset. From St. John monastery teams continued to the caving and abseil section in former stone mine Alkazar and than back to TA in Zadni Treban. During this stage Danish team FjallRaven shown its high quality and moved to the lead. During the first 20 kilometers they gained 45 minutes to their opponents and they were 90 minutes ahead of 2nd Salomon/Nutrend of the Czech Republic at the end of the first stage. Next part of the race was 140 kilometers long mountain bike stage, which took teams across the Brdy mountain range (800 m high) for the first time. This stage also included embedded swimming section and special tasks climbing and swimming with bikes. And it was an innocent swimming section that decided the raceThe specification was simple. Team members had to take a relay and swim 750 meters in the natural swimming pool each. But to make it more difficult this section was planned so that most teams would arrive there at night. And thanks to the clear sky, that created warm sunny days, nights were extremely cold. It was just few degrees above zero centigrade. Vapor was rising from the water and even organizers clothed in the warm jackets were freezing.

After a short but vigorous argument, team decided to withdraw from the race.

First to arrive to the swimming section was team Fjallraven. They changed to their bathing suit and first of them started to swim. But after 400 meters he gave up. Although they did not complete this section, they wanted to continue in the race. After long discussions, race director Tomas Vanek let them go and they were awarded with 3 hours penalty. But the decision had to be confirmed by the Jury. When it met, it decided to prolong penalty by additional 3 hours 20 minutes – an hour for each member who failed to swim. Overall penalty thus totaled 6:20. Even favorite Czech team Salomon/Nutrend, 2nd at that point, did not complete the section. In absence of the absence of Czech international team that was 9th on the World championships (its captain Tomas Vanek was the race director and other two team members were in the staff) they were considered as the best and most experienced Czech team. But one of its racers, who was actually pushing the team during the first part of race, went through a crisis at the moment, was trembling cold and refused to swim.


Problem was that other team member was already racing with cystitis and it would be difficult for him to swim. After a short but vigorous argument, team decided to withdraw from the race. This section seemed to be a killer of the teams but all the other had completed it. Some teams wanted to follow Danish example and settle with a penalty but race marshals persuaded them that penalty was probably going to be much higher than original 3 hours. All this left last years winners Tilak/OpavaNet captained by Marek Navratil in the lead. Teams continued on their bikes to the next special task. They had to cross the river with all their equipment and no bridge was close. To handle this they were provided with tyre tubes for a car. They put their bike on it and their backpack to the top and swam across the river. No one gave up, as there was clearly no other path to the other side.

Actually first teams still swimming at night or at the dusk were lucky. Before arrival of seventh team water brought some algae and the water was horribly green. After completing this, teams continued to the climbing section and across Brdy range back to the TA in Zadni Treban. Following in-lines section was another surprise for the racers. It was only 10 kilometers long but 8 km were up the steep hill to the top of the Brdy range. It would be difficult even I a car. To the relief of most racers teams did not have to go down but instead they left their in-lines at the end of the section and continued to the start of the rafting section on foot. First teams arrived there at 10 pm and they had to wait in the dark zone until 5 am. The stop time was measured and time spent in the dark zone was deducted from the time of the race. First team to arrive was Tilak/OpavaNet. They had so much time they even had pizza and some beers. Second to come was FjallRaven who already had passed first 3 hours of their penalty as a stop and go during trekking section. The rest of their penalty was deducted from their stop-time. Even though they were fifth and were losing only 15 minutes to the third place. The third were Ekonom/Internet Billboard lead by experienced Jan Kotyk, fifth from this year’s Bergson Winter Challenge. After the dark zone the race gained speed.

Before arrival of seventh team water brought some algae and the water was horribly green.

First five teams had plenty of time to rest. Sixth team only had half an hour and seventh team arrived when dark zone was lifted. Rafting stage was not technically difficult but there was not enough water so that teams had to pull their rafts often. Teams paddled on the Sázava river and its valley is one of places around Prague really worth to be seen. Leaving rafts in Pikovice, teams returned to the TA to get ready for the last stage. It was shortest of all ­– 35 kilometers of mountain bike orienteering. But the difficult navigation in a hilly area made it hard anyway. First teams made it between three and four hours but slower teams, and especially those going at night, spent much more time there. On Friday 14:49 first team – FjallRaven – arrived to the finish. But as they had shorter stop time in the dark zone than their opponents, they were not winners. Shortly after, at 15:02, winning team Tilak/OpavaNet arrived, keeping its title for the next year.

The team proved once again that reliability is more important in adventure racing than speed. Then long waiting for the third team started. Ekonom/Internet Billboard set up for the MTBO stage just few minutes behind first two teams, but waiting took almost an hour. They arrived at 15:53. After quick counting they found out that including stop-time they finished second and started to celebrate. Later on they explained, that they broke their bike during the last section and had to push it almost the whole course. Team FjallRaven finally took third place. Finally, thirteen teams managed to complete the whole race. Another five teams (including two teams who already started as three member teams) finished the race as incomplete and unclassified. Only four teams withdrew completely.