Friday, December 8, 2006

Is The Raid Dead?

In the world of adventure racing The Raid has been a respected and well known event for a long time. It's origins date back a long way, and it has been one of the pillars of the sport. But today we get news that the Raid is changing it's name to The Saab Salomon Mountain Sports Game.

The format will be completely different than anything we've seen before in AR. In fact, I'm not sure you can call it adventure racing at all anymore. There will be five different events, held over five days, and opened to 80 teams of three in male, female, or mixed catgories. The events will include Mountain Biking (Day 1), Mountaineering (Day 2), White Water Activities (Day 3), Ropes Activities (Day 4), and Orienteering (Day 5). You can find more in this PDF.

It's sad to see such an event as the Raid change it's format so dramatically. What does this mean for the sport of adventure racing? Are the major expedition length races becoming a thing of the past? Are we seeing the end of the epic, multi-day races like the Raid, Primal Quest, and Eco-Challenge? Yak at Check Point Zero, weighs in with his thoughts in his latest blog entry.

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