Strong International Line Up for Raid Gallaecia

Rob Howard / 06.05.2017

Twenty-Nine teams representing 14 different countries are now arriving in North-West Spain for the Raid Gallaecia Expedition Race, round 4 of this year’s AR World Series. It is a very international mix and promises to be a closely contested race with 4 teams from in the ARWS top 20 rankings, three of them previous World Series winners and a strong Spanish entry of 11 teams. However the Spanish teams will have to beat strong Gallic and Nordic challenges if they want to win their home race.

Of the five French teams the most successful are Naturex, former Raid in France winners and with a best World Champs finish of 4th.  Their team for this race includes Sonia Furtado, who is described by team Captain Sebastian Raichon as “a live wire, the battery for the team with the ability to go very quickly with strong physical capacities”. (However, she isn’t on their ARWS roster for points scoring races which may cause qualification issues.) Their two other very experienced racers for this event are Thomas Gaudion and Romuald Viale and they are the highest world ranked team in the race at 5th.

All of the French teams are very experienced, but the other contender for a podium place are the youngest of them, Team FMR.  They too have won a World Series race and been French national champions, but are nowhere near as experienced and well travelled as Naturex. They were winners at ITERA Ireland last year, a race which was affected by appalling weather, showing that the young team can tough out the bad weather and meet the most extreme navigational challenges. There is likely to be a good race-within-the-race between these two teams.

The Nordic Challenge comes from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland and features a mix of established and new teams.

Norwegian team USWE are the new kids on the block leg by Jacob and Helen Westerberg (see https://goo.gl/Fik6Wx). Helen says, “We have the skills, endurance and mental abilities needed. With Jacob and my own recent experiences from ARWS races combined with Felix technical navigation skills, we are prepared for pretty much anything.”  Austrian born Felix Breitschädel is their navigator and for this race they are joined by Bjarke Refslund.  

The 24 hour Meals Adventure Team from Sweden are also relatively new to long races, but they do have the invaluable experience of racing at Expedition Alaska and Expedition Africa behind them.  By contrast Swedish compatriots SWECO have 10 ARWS races behind them, and a wealth of experience. These two teams will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of Haglofs Silva who won the last Raid Gallaecia in 2015, pushing Seagate into a rare second place.

The other World Series winners on the start line are the Cyanosis Adventure Team of South Africa, who won this year at Expedicion Guarani in Paraguay.  That race was at the start of March and the same team line up will arrive full of confidence, especially as their win in Paraguay was by a huge margin.

After Naturex the highest ranked World Series team are Estonian ACE Adventure, currently 8th. They have been winning this year too and featured strongly at the last two world champs, with a best place of 5th in Pantanal Brazil.  However, they have yet to win a World Series race. Could this be their chance to do so?

All in all it is looking like this is going to be a closely contested race and as there are likely to be many route choices in the agricultural landscapes of Gallaecia, it should be a good race to follow online.

SleepMonsters will bring you regular news and lots of photos on Facebook and you can follow the live tracking page at http://live.raidgallaecia.com

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