It was a very bright start to Adventure race Slovenia 2007 - in terms of competitors, organizers and also in terms of weather. The sun was shining at the beginning of the race and, as we predicted, temperatures have risen well over 25 degrees Celsius.



The first few check points were passed at a real sprinting race: four CPs in the town of Velenje, swimming in Velenjsko jezero lake and then first mountain biking section. Right from the start it was a battle for first place between three teams. The French team Les Arcs - Quechua, Salomon/Nutrend CZ AR Team from the Czech Republic and the Slovenian team Lima - Salomon adventureteam.si were fighting it out for the first place at the end of first day.

The lead shifted more than it ever has in the history of adventure racing in Slovenia. All of the above mentioned teams were in front for a while. It seemed like French took the lead for good at CP 11, but they lost it (in the perhaps most difficult section of the course so far) the night orienteering. It was a tough night - one of the toughest in Adventure race Slovenia history. Weather just collapsed and it was so bad that the organizers had to stop the race for almost two hours for skies to clear. But we will get back to that part ...

It's a great competition this year. Indeed there are a few less teams than in the previous years but there are seven or eight teams on a very high level. The proof of that is how close the race is so far, where the first two teams are seperated by just a few minutes.
Let's have a quick look back at the race through adventurerace.si diary. We picked up the action at CP6 after a really flying start ...

Race Day I, 11:55 CET
Development of events at Adventure race Slovenia 2007 is really fast. A few minutes ago French team Les Arcs - Quechua reached CP6 (Mostnar). They had a two minute advantage over second-place Czech team Salomon/Nutrend CZ AR Team. Swimming stage is now over for all teams.

Race Day I, 14:20 CET
There is only 9 minute difference between first five teams at CP 8. It seems like this edition of Adventure race Slovenia will be the closest one in terms of time difference.

Race Day I, 18:12 CET
First team at CP11 was team No. 11 Les Arcs - Quechua (FRA). French team overtook Salomon/Nutrend CZ AR Team in the special orienteering section. But time difference between the leading teams is only two minutes.

At that point the first teams were starting to suffer. The time limit was to hard to reach for three teams and they had to go by a shorter route. Our special on-site reporter Matjaz Ravnjak provided some interviews for us at that point of the race.

CITY WOLFS, Sweden
Q:«Was the orienteering hard or was only hard terrain?«
A:»We were in this kind of the terrain for the first time. It was tricky, but it went super and we didn't miss anything.«

DEUTER ADVENTURA, Poland
»The race is wonderful, we have a lot of joy, especially in the river.I think the rest of the race wont' be to hard, the problem will be with water because it's really hot. Another problem will be to reach the points within the limit, the limits are very hard. We just hope to finish the race.«
But it didn't turned out the best for the only Polish team in this year's race as they were the first team to step down because of severe stomach problems by one of their team members. At the moment two teams have withdrawn from the race because of injuries or sickness.

Race Day I, 23:11 CET
First night session of fifth edition of Adventure race Slovenia started the brightest for French team Les Arcs - Quechua which was first to reach CP14 (Mozirska koèa). Then they started night orienteering which takes just two team members to compete. 7 minutes later, the leading team Salomon/Nutrend CZ AR Team from Czech Republic went to the woods and the best Slovenian team Lima - Salomon adventureteam.si is just 22 minutes behind. It's going to be a long night ...