The Imptek Huairasinchi race is hosting the 20th championship event, based in the city of Cuenca in the south of Ecuador. The event is the culmination of the 2024 Adventure Racing World Series and attracted 62 teams from 26 nations.
The new champions crossed the finish line on Wednesday morning to take their first world title. They completed the 560km course by trekking, mountain biking, paddling, climbing and navigating through Andean hills and Amazonian forests in 90 hours and 47 minutes.
The team overcame the handicap of a one hour time penalty for not having compulsory climbing equipment at one point during the race. Descending a fast-flowing river in the dark, one of their pack-rafts flipped and the backpack of Sandrine Béranger was lost in the swirling waters.
“We spent a lot of time searching,” she said, “but we couldn’t find it and had to go on. We had lost our lead and had to wait for a penalty decision, but we just continued to do our best. It was our lowest point, but we don’t give up.”
Teams have to be self-sufficient in the 4-6 day race so a penalty was applied for borrowing equipment, and on the following 160km mountain bike ride the French team was overtaken by defending World Champions, the Swedish Armed Forces Adventure Team, unbeaten since 2022.
Undaunted the French quartet fought back on the next trekking stage to build a lead once again, then served their penalty on the course, and set off on the final 110km ride with a lead of just 13 minutes (after 80 hours of racing).
They were to stay in front to the finish line, but even at the end were not sure they had won. “We took some wrong roads in the city as we rode to the finish,” said Beranger, “and we didn’t know if the Swedes had passed us, so we went into the stadium slowly, unsure if we were first or second.
“And we were the winners! It’s like a dream to us after so many years of racing. We believed we could win and this year felt ready to do it. I don’t know why, we had to do it.”
The Race Director, Santiago Lopez said, “On that last ride I could see the fire in their eyes. They were totally focussed on winning. The Swedish Armed Forces team are great champions and gave everything, but 400team pushed beyond their limits to take the win.”
Béranger said, “We slept only 2 hours in the race. We wanted more sleep, but we wanted to win even more.”
400team have raced on the Adventure Racing World Series for 15 years, competing in 30 events all over the world, winning races, but never previously the elusive world title.
“This is the culmination,” declared team captain Sébastien Raichon at the finish line. “My first experience was Raid in France in 2009 in the Verdon. All the memories of these years come flooding back—my teammates, the travels, the various races, the ARWS victories … I started realizing we could win in the final hours, and I cried on my bike. The emotion overwhelmed me.”
400team included Sébastien Raichon, Sandrine Béranger, Adrien Lhermet, and Benjamin Fayet, and as title holders they now have a guaranteed place at the next year’s Championship, hosted by Expedition Canada in British Columbia.
The Swedish Armed Forces Adventure Team finished second and team captain John Karlsson said, “You win some, you lose some, but it’s all about the adventure and we could do no more, so we are happy.” In a surprise third place was Team Estonia Tactical Foodpack.
The top 10 teams were from France, Sweden, Estonia, Brazil, Spain, New Zealand, Ecuador and South Africa and the race course remains open for teams to finish until Saturday 7th December.
The current positions of teams still racing can be seen on live satellite tracking at; https://live.enabledtracking.com/ARWC2024
There is extensive live media coverage on #arworldseries media channels, and regular video updates on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/c/ARWorldSeries
All of the media links and resources, and more about Huairasinchi can be found at https://proyectoaventura.com/site/13/livearwc24
VIEW ALL
RELATED RACES
26
Nov
