Expedition Africa 120km Swellendam
Youth and Experience at Expedition Africa Swellendam
Press Release / 06.05.2021
The second leg of the Adventure Racing World Series – Africa is due to start in 2 days’ time at the Kam’Bati River Resort.
It’s the second event of 6 in the series, and has received fantastic support with 50 teams (pairs and 4’s) due to race at the first Expedition Africa 120km race in the Western Cape. Among them are 6 Youth teams (all 4 members under 25), so this is the strongest youth entry seen at a race in South Africa.
The venue at the Kam’Bati River resort is situated on an Overberg farm called Jubileeskraal, approximately 20km west of Swellendam. The Sonderendriver and Breede rivers meet on the property, which is owned and managed by the Badenhorst Family, and given the unprecedented heavy rains and floods in the last 24 hours this has presented the Race Directors with the challenging task of working out a last minute plan B in case the Breede river is not safe to paddle.
Most of the top teams from the first race in Bronkhorstspruit in April have returned seeking series points and the focus will be on the mixed teams of four competing to be crowned the South African Adventure Racing Champions at the end of the year in Lesotho. (They are ultimately racing to win the coveted entry spot for the World Championship in 2022 in Paraguay.)
Cyanosis Adventure Racing, Pinegold, Balega and Addicted2Adventure held the top spots after the first race, and are all entered this time around. Winners and series leaders Cyanosis will field a different team, captained for the first time by Tracey Campbell.
Also racing are Team Songlines, who lead for the first half of the race in April, but due to a navigational error missed the top spot and finished 6th. The team consisting of Lance Kime, Owen Gandar, Tamika Gandar and Kelvin Trautman raced a few times together last year, but under a different team names. The consensus this year was that they would make their partnership a little more formal and so Team Songlines was born.
It’s an interesting team name. A Songline marks a route across land, sea and sky and has been used by Aboriginals for generations to find their way. The melody of these songs is said to describe the contours and features of the landscape, which the team thought was marvelous way to think about navigating their way around an adventure race course. It’s a very special meaning and name, and they will be keen to re-establish themselves at the front end of the field to gain valuable points towards the rankings. Let’s see what this team will bring to the table in Swellendam.
Team Truffle Hunters are also attending with the goal to break open a spot in the top five. They are among a big group of Cape-based teams that did not travel up to Gauteng in April, so will be looking to register their first points.
The race is due to start at 7:30 am on Saturday and there will be live tracking at www.expafrica.live.
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