No Big Beasts at Expedition Africa …

Rob Howard / 12.05.2017

Expedition Africa 2017 is about to begin with teams travelling to the Cape St. Francis Resort from around the world for the 512k race in the Baviaans and Kouga regions of the Eastern Cape. The race starts early Sunday morning and teams have the opening ceremony today, followed by the usual registration procedures.

There is a very international mix for the race, as you would expect for a well established World Series race, including visiting teams from Mexico and Israel.  It’s not often those flags are raised at the opening ceremonies of a big adventure race and it’s great to see the trend for more varied international teams continuing at World Series races.

In all there are 12 nations represented among the athletes, and there are teams from Brazil and Argentina, Japan, Europe and Australia. These include some of the most experienced racers in the world, like the ‘Quasarlonta Brazil’ captain Raphael Campos and the Japanese East Wind team, led by the indomitable Masato Tanaka, a veteran of expedition races going back almost two decades.

It’s an unusual mix of teams in another way however, with none of the elite S. African or highly placed ARWS world ranked teams taking part.  The elephant in the room is that there are none of the big beasts of AR in the race!

It’s something of a disappointment not to see the likes of’ Merrell Adventure Addicts’, ‘Sanlam Painted Wolf’ or ‘Cyanosis’ there (Cyanosis are right now finishing Raid Gallaecia in Spain), but on the other hand it will make for a less predictable and more exciting race, giving different teams a chance of high placing or a World Series win.

This probably leaves the most experienced teams in the starting line up as favourites, and there are two ways of looking at that.

The most well travelled and race experienced team are undoubtedly ‘East Wind’ of Japan, who have many podium places behind them a team captain who has seen it all.  The same could be said of Rafael Campos of ‘Quasarlontra Brazil’ who have placed highly in World Series races and World Champs.

‘Team Alquimistas Trevo’ of Argentina are also highly ranked on the Latin American circuit and have several World Series and a World Champs race behind them as well. ‘Thunderbolt AR’ of Australia have some wins under their belt too, and finished 7th at the last World Champs (under a different name), so they will be a team to watch for.  So too will ‘Skylotec Adventure Team’ from Sweden. This is another ‘new’ team, but again lots of experience in top Swedish teams on their race records.

There are other very experienced racers international races too. Irish teams have a strong connection with the race and the 2 Irish teams know Expedition Africa well, while the multinational team ‘Running Shade’ has experienced campaigners Phillipe Chod and Phil Scarfe who have teamed up with S. African racers to add their local knowledge to the team mix. The RAF team from the UK are Expedition Africa regulars now as well and Nantes Adventures of France have kept the same team together for 5 years, and this is their 6th ARWS race.

Home advantage counts however and there are many South African teams on the start list who are Expedition Africa stalwarts. They will know what to expect, how to deal with it, be used to the maps and know how the Race Directors think.  ‘Castle Lite’ have raced all 6 Expedition Africa’s (with a highest place of 5th), Team Nevarest Jabberwock have 4 EA’s behind them with a highest of 4th, and Team Anitmatter Zama are regulars too and have some local advantage.

All of which adds up to a fascinating race where pretty much anything could happen!

 Watch the dots on the live race page at http://www.kineticgear.org/ and follow our reports from Adam Rose, who is live at the race for SleepMonsters and you’ll see how it all unfolds.  

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