Team PowerBar Swiss Explorers at the Graal Adventure Race
Francky David / 24.09.2020
With international races cancelled the PowerBar Swiss Explorers team looked closer to home and recently took part in the Graal Adventure Race. Only the final race of the 3 event series took place, and it will be the only adventure race in Switzerland this year, but the team was glad to get out racing.
The event took place at Mont-sur-Lausanne and was for pairs, with several different categories for all abilities, and the shorter distances included unusual and fun disciplines like golf and axe throwing!
Here’s a quick report from the team on how they got on.
After the cancellation of big races due to Covid restrictions the PowerBar Swiss Explorers team had to find some replacement events for their planned World Series races and the World Championship in Paraguay. Therefore we naturally turned towards the only Swiss adventure race of this year: the Graal adventure.
We had 2 teams on the start line, 1 full male, and 1 mixed team. We started with a social distancing event aiming to spread the teams out before they set off on their mountain bikes. The objective was simple, but took some time. We had piece together a jigsaw shape from some precut papers. We were not excellent at it (not to say bad), so we started the mountain bike at the back of the pack!
We soon caught up with the first teams and before the transition to the forest orienteering, we were back amongst the lead teams. We had then to transfer to Lake Geneva through the Lausanne subway (neutralized time) wearing masks. We also had to answer some historical questions about the subway for bonus time, which is quite unique in adventure racing. Our paddling on the lake was efficient and were back then amongst the leaders.
At this stage we were only half way into the race. We had then more legs of mountain biking & orienteering, where we were able to accelerate and orienteer well until we crossed the finished line in 1st & 3rd position!
Success for the two PowerBar Swiss Explorers teams in the magnificent scenery of Switzerland…and last but not least, we were so happy to put a race Bib on again.
Now we are looking forward to 2021 with ARWS participation in Expedition Africa Lesotho & PC12 in Colombia. Bring on the adventure!
Francky for the PowerBar Swiss Explorers team.