A New Expedition Race Is Born

Posted by Grant on 7. November 2010 20:10

While our one-day Zürcher Berserker event is coming up at the end of the month (and sign-up, already!), a lot of energy has been invested lately in opening a new expedition race here (moving our Adventure Racing World Series race from the USA for 2011 to Switzerland). 

Official announcements about this Swiss adventure race will come later this week, and I'm not going to advance any race details here, but you might be interested to know some of the background . . .

• From my first few trips into the Swiss alps, it became apparent to me that this region has stunning beauty and terrain ripe for adventure racing.  Possibly with the exception of New Zealand, I don't think I've seen a country with so much to offer to an adventure athlete!

• The legal framework in Switzerland is much easier to navigate than the US, and permitting here is more a matter of informing officials and confirming the race organization's route decisions instead of the ordeal in America of begging land managers for access to public land, or convincing private land owners.  In fact, the whole definition of "private" and "public" land in Switzerland is much more sensible and makes it far easier to layout a race course. 
  
  
  • Just one example: while a private Swiss farmer might own the land his cows graze on, he can't prevent another person from simply walking through the field (conversely in the USA, this would be tresspassing and can get you shot!).
    

• Each Spring that we've lived in Switzerland, we've run a small 3-day stage race, known as the "Untamed Switzerland Alpine Stage Race."  It's been 3 years for this event, and they've been very successful stage races involving navigation, trail running, and snowshoeing.  After seeing the Swiss landscape, each year people suggest we should operate a non-stop event or a more conventional adventure race . . . but my answer has always been the same: the Untamed Adventure organization doesn't have the resources, language skills, or local connections in Switzerland to make a bigger race a reality.  All this changed about a year ago when we joined forces with a Swedish sports marketing team that -- lucky for the adventure racing world -- moved to Switzerland and started a dialog with us on the topic.  Many hours of coffees, beers, and glasses of wine were shared while we discussed the prospects for an expedition event in the Alps.  Staffan Källbäck leads this Swedish effort and, together, we have what it takes to make a great race in Switzerland a reality.  I'll share more background on Staffan another time, but he has the unique industry contacts and available time to negotiate the fine details through with the Swiss municipalities.  In fact, Staffan has already developed a few "adopted families" in the region where the race will be held -- he's that good with people and knowing how to make an event a success for all parties.

• We've created Untamed Adventure Racing as a strong brand, and it's gained recognition as a top-of-the-line race management organization.  One problem I've seen, when racing in places that aren't native English speaking, they often mistake the "Untamed" part of our name for a sponsor and not an adjective such as "Wild" or "Rugged."  The "Untamed" word, in a non-English context, can get read as a bio-tech company (in Patagonia people kept asking me about what "un-ta-MED" was all about); at a race in France last year, nobody had a clue what the word "Untamed" was about and found it hard to pronounce.  This led us to the decision that naming a Swiss expedition race as "Untamed Switzerland" might be a mistake, as it would only speak clearly to those with excellent English skills.  This would limit our sponsor opportunities, and make it more of an English race being held in Switzerland -- that's not our intent.  I won't unveil the name of the new race, that's for later this week, but we had to select something more universal as the event needs to be promoted widely in Germany, France, Spain, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, etc.  In short, we've been an international race organization for nearly 4 years, and Untamed Adventure Racing will remain the organizer behind the event, but this evolution has us truly embracing a global market in exciting ways -- like how we will be truly translating the race website across multiple languages for the first time ever.     

So, we're on the cusp of the big announcement and it's taken years to lay the foundation.  Our AR World Championship qualifier will be held in Switzerland for 2011, and in 2012 we'll return to the USA and -- very probably -- continue to have a large Swiss race in the AR World Series too.  The brand "Untamed Adventure Racing" isn't going away, but the new race will enjoy a fresh and new name to better pave the way for an international field to embrace the race.  Switzerland is, after all, the most international of countries and our event is going to capitalize on all the wonder to be had in Switzerland . . . seriously, this race is through a fairy tale region with castles and lush valleys and snowfields and jagged mountain peaks and roaring whitewater and and and and . . . 

Can you tell we're excited?  You should be too!