Tomorrow starts the first big international race of this season, Expedition Africa. The race is part of the Adventure Racing World Series and a qualifier for the World Championship in Ecuador in November. Team Haglöfs Silva will be represented by Björn, Josefina, Mattias and Emil Dahlqvist. We are very happy that Emil could join us once again, as neither Aaron nor Robert could go. The race is to be held in the Wild Coast area, close to Durban in the east part of South Africa.
Teams of four, with at least one team member of opposite sex, will race day and night on a race course covering 500 km without mandatory stops and dark zones. The race course is divided into nine different sections including ocean kayaking, a 21 hour trekking section with canyoneering and a 230 kilometer mountainbike section. 40 teams have entered the race, including 2012 years world Champions Seagate (NZ) and 2013 years bronze medalist Tecnu (US/Canada).
The days before the race have been busy with pre-race preparations. We still managed to squeeze in a short training session on the beach and took part of the community project where we helped school kids to try kayaking for the first time in their lives. Just as the previous races, we are lucky that our friend and photographer Andreas Strand have the possibility to follow us before and during the race. Below are some of his photos from the last two days.
Our team photographer Andreas Strand will try to keep our homepage, www.arsweden.se, updated daily during the race and he will also post pictures on our facebook whenever he finds an internet connection out there in the wild! The race homepage will also contain live-tracking.
We all from Örnsköldsvik wish you Mattias and rest of the team: “Good luck in the race and start gerntly andf then increase but remember to fit the map!”
Heja heja heja hälsar vi i Bagarmossen