<< Interval Training Suggestions? | 2010 World Championship Predictions >>

World Championships Start this Weekend -- where are the Americans?

Posted by Grant on 27. September 2010 20:12

The 2010 AR World Championships start this weekend. I contributed this piece to Adventure World Magazine on the topic . . . and I have some more material to share there, but I thought I'd take an informal stab here at the topic of why so few US teams appear on the race roster.

First thing: that race roster is terribly out of date, there are 53 teams actually planning to race as opposed to the 71 shown on the race website -- Wilsa, Team Explore, Blackheart, and many other teams aren't competing due to illness (jungle fever caught in Costa Rica for Sweden's Team Explore!), injury, or finances. These sorts of withdrawals happen all the time, and isn't cause for alarm besides the fact that the race organization has a woefully inaccurate race roster posted a few days prior to the event. I'm just aware of one "US" team that isn't currenly listed: Team Untamed New England will be racing (with mostly Canadian personnel). Team Nike is now racing as Team Blackwater, which will ensure they get even less love from the locals than they would've before the name change; I hope Blackwater wrote them a very hefty check!

Now, even with the addition of a Team Untamed New England to the mix, there are not many American teams attending the World Championships. I think this is due to a few basic reasons:

An American team didn't win the World Championship Qualifier in August held in the USA, Untamed New England, which would've earned them a paid entry to the Championships in Spain and a nice chunk of change to pay for their travel. The race was won by the Canadians of GUATS Adventure (formerly SupplierPipeline team).
An American team didn't win 2nd place at Untamed New England, which also would've earned them a paid entry into the World Championships. 2nd place was claimed by the impressive Danes on "Team Skandia."
The team finishing 3rd in New England was Team Granite AR -- from America -- and while 3rd place qualifies them to compete at the World Championships there wasn't a paid entry set-aside as a prize for third place in New England, so they would have to pay there own way.

Team Granite AR, shown above at CP 16 in New England, are certainly a strong enough team to compete at the World Championships, but the US economy and sorry state of sponsorship support in the US means Team Granite will be sitting it out next week (more on this below).
Looking over the results for the other AR World Series events, no American teams earned their way into the Championships abroad.
A corollary to the above: while not many US teams traveled internationally to compete at these other events, I can honestly say as an American living in Switzerland for several years, that the "average" adventure race team in Europe is faster than their American equivalents. It's not just AR, the level of competition at orienteering events, trail runs, etc is generally higher in Switzerland than in the US and most European teams at the World Championships would win just about any 24-hour race they entered in America. As far as international AR fitness goes, the USA has a lot of room for improvement! I don't mean any disrespect with this, I just see the level of training and fitness for the AR elite in Europe to be at a level above the USA. This is due, in part, to the sorry state of AR organization in the USA (see below) -- but I also know first-hand from living in Switzerland that there is an atmosphere of intensity and endurance racing excellence that is palpable here . . . while in the USA it's much more of a hobby or past-time. To make my Canadian friends smile, I will add that pound-for-pound, I see consistently better teams coming from Canada. It will be great to see how GUATS Adventure from Canada measures up against the worlds best next week!
The sport of AR in America is on the decline, with the lack of leadership from the USARA combining with the retreat of sponsors from the sport to make for a spiralling lack of general interest and excitement. The latest incarnation of Checkpoint Tracker shows promise as a national points series, and may eventually become the governance/promotion mechanism the sport needs in the US, but right now there is a void when it comes to national leadership and the sport struggles for legitimacy. With Untamed New England, we've never affiliated with a national "governing" body because there really is no such thing in the US; we're happy to do our own thing in some of the most under-rated wilderness in the nation.

So, for those asking "where are the American teams?" at the World Championships next week, the blunt answer is that the Canadians and a rogue Danish team came to the USA and snatched up the spots contested on American soil. The 3rd place team, America's own Team Granite, declined to race in Spain and so the 4th place team at New England (a Canadian team) is attending the Championships instead. To Americans, we may be the center of the sporting world . . . but the truth is more nuanced: America has some phenomenal AR teams but doesn't dominate at the international level and . . . just maybe . . . having a few Americans sprinkled in a field of 200 racers at the World Championships is about right.

Comments: 9

Filed Under: AR World Series | untamed new england

Tags: ar world series, untamed new england

AR World Series Thoughts I'm going to start including more AR World Series content in this blog. It's a logic...Team Untamed New England Racing in Ontario June 5/6 Weekend This is the weekend for Ontario, Canada's Wilderness Traverse race and I submitted an AR World...New England Joins the AR World Series It's been a long time coming -- it's been part of our master plan for ...

Comments

Troy Johnston said,

Great insight Grant, sorry my fellow Canucks stole the show.

Dima said,

Grant,
It looks like american racers are older on average. Is it true?

Jason Urckfitz said,

If you look at the costs involved to hit one of the overseas qualifiers and/or Worlds (race entry, airfare, lodging, ground transportation, shipping gear, exchange rate) it quickly becomes cost-prohibitive for a majority of the US teams.

Grant said,

Interesting question, Dima, and I would say that American adventure racers are a bit older than the ones I see in Europe. I never really thought about it, but in the US some of the best AR types are well beyond 40 years of age . . . but I think that might be because of the strong youth feeder system with orienteering being a truly national youth activity here (in Switzerland at least). Younger people discover AR earlier than in the US, where many stumble upon it via triathlon or trail running.

I would also add that time away from the office, and making time for exercise, is more highly valued in Switzerland; it's not a contest about who can work the longest hours at their desk here! Holiday time is easier to come by, too.

Grant said,

@Jason: Absolutely, the costs for an unsponsored (or a team that hasn't won the $6500 prize entry) team make it hard to travel to race internationally.

sean clancy said,

It's actually very simple, and there is one main reason, besides the obvious costs...

Last year's fiasco was the final straw. Who the hell wants to travel across the world to do a ROGAINE style race? We have our answer! Nobody.

There are some race directors in the US who are also sabotaging the sport by putting on ROGAINE style races. What's most bizarre is some of these races have had SPOT tracking online...which not only confuses the viewer(s) at home but turns anyone off to the sport who might be watching. Impossible to follow.

In a recession there are fewer people with disposable income and even fewer companies willing to invest 10-20k in a team for their marketing efforts...

There are no longer many teams in the US with sponsorship money to travel abroad to races. MOST of the athletes that are in fact good enough to compete at this level left adventure racing several years ago, or will delay their entry to the sport until their early to mid-40s.

There is far more sponsorship and prize money in cycling, XTERRA, Ironman, etc. It doesn't make sense for these athletes to "waste" their talents in AR and get slower/risk injury/interfere with their more lucrative race schedule. You will see some of these guys come out of the woodwork for at least one race per year when and if there IS substantial prize money involved.

Risk/Benefit and opportunity cost.

adventureworldmagazineonline.com said,

Pingback from adventureworldmagazineonline.com

World Championships Start this Weekend — where are the Americans? | Adventure World Magazine

Neal Radford said,

+1 with Sean's and other comments above...

Personally, I was never a fan of rogaine's in AR (but it is great in its own right)...to me AR was/is all about a journey.

Cheers,
Neal

Grant said,

@Sean: you've been on a crusade against the rogaine AR style of late, I think the only time I see your name is in reference to the topic! I agree that the Portugal WC was a circus and highlighted the lack of international AR governance; trust me, nuun wasn't the only disappointed team! At Untamed we don't use the "creative" rogaine format for AR, and besides Portugal and the ARWS race in the UK, no other world series event uses it. I won't speak for them, but it's not my preference either.

Come to think of it, I only know of one organization doing rogaine AR in the US; are there really that many out in Colorado or California? I mean, as far as reasons for why few Americans are at the world championships this is surely a distant choice below "expense involved in getting to the race" since nobody has sponsor $ anymore (which is tied to the shortage of media coverage, etc etc etc)?

Comments are closed