XTRAIL Altay Expedition
Team Avaya Ready to Race in China
Press Release / 01.06.2018
Ni Hao from China, the Altay prefecture located in northern Xinjiang. We are in the north west of China which borders Kazakstan, Russia and Mongolia. It’s a very interesting part of the world, historically, culturally and geographically.
We are here for the Adventure Racing World Series round which starts on June 2nd. The team for the race is the same team that won the 2016 Adventure Racing World Championships in Australia, myself, Chris Forne, Stu Lynch and Jo Williams.
We have been in China for 3-days which have mainly been spent travelling and managing gear, but we have managed to get out for a run and bike ride to loosen up after the air and ground transport.
This is my first time to this race as I didn’t race in 2017, the team won this race last year so we’re keen to repeat that. This is also an important race for us because we haven’t raced on the ARWS this year so we need the points to retain our number one world ranking. We are confident we can win the race should things go well for us, but there is a strong field of competitors, racing has many unknowns and we’ll just have to work with what we have on course. This race also serves as a stepping stone to the World Championships in November. The $50,000USD prize pool is a motivator!
It is a relatively small field for the race this year which is a bit disappointing, but there is a quality field so the racing will be exciting. There are only 12-teams in the long course race and 20-teams in the short course. There are teams from France, Sweden, South Africa, Estonia, Australia and China. There is another very good team from New Zealand. The race is approximately 600km and is expected to be a 72-hour winning time.
We have been surprised how cold it is in the mountains, last night it snowed and the rivers look cold! We are expecting a dynamic course as we’ve been told we will be in the mountains around Kanas Lake and also in the Gobi desert. The landscape I’ve seen in the short time I have been here is very pretty and diverse. It is spring time so the flowers are starting to blossom and the leaves are returning, it’s a pretty area.
The race website will have live tracking and regular updates.
www.xtrail.arworldseries.com
The course has been announced and this is what we'll be doing for a few days! We're excited and keen to get into it.
Run 3km
Kayak 12.5km
Trek 26km
Raft 5.5km
Trek 38km
Mountain Bike 117km
Trek 22km
Mountain Bike 42km
Kayak 60km
Trek 30km
Kayak 25km
Trek 31km
Mountain Bike 101km
SleepMonsters
