Adventure Racing World Series competition returns to the Scottish Highlands with this year’s ITERA and ITERA Lite races taking place from August 10-15th
Competitors from 8 different countries are now arriving at the race HQ at the Badaguish Outdoor Centre on the edge of the Cairngorm Mountains. In all 54 teams will be taking part in two races, the 500km ITERA expedition race, which is an Adventure Racing World Series qualifier, and the 300km ITERA Lite, which is part of the ARWS Europe calendar.
ITERA has been a regular visitor to Scotland, with several previous expedition races taking place in the country. Scotland also hosted the first ITERA lite, which took place in the borders, where event organisers Durty Events are based.
Race Director Paul McGreal, an adventure racer himself, commented, “I love to show off how fantastic the Scottish outdoors is. It’s my playground and I want to share it with visitors from the UK and the world, and put together a course to take them to exceptional locations. That might be paddling on a fast flowing river or big loch, a craggy mountain summit, or a checkpoint at a historic site like a famous castle, and we have lots of all those in Scotland!”
Teams will not know where they are racing until the day before the start at the race briefing, and McGreal is not giving anything away. He said, “We can go in any direction into the Highlaands from Badaguish and have a fantastic course.”
Teams have been given the basic details of the course, to help them plan their equipment and food, as they’ll be self sufficient for up to 5 days of racing.
The expedition route, which is for teams of 4, shows 14 stages of trekking, mountain biking and paddling, with several orienteering stages and some special stages with surprise activities. These teams will start their race at an undisclosed location at 12.00 on Sunday, and the Lite racers, competing in pairs, will join the route for stage 8 after starting at 14.00 on Tuesday. From there to the finish all racers will be on the same course.
There are many experienced international teams taking part in both races, but no clear favourites, so the racing should be closely contested. Race fans can follow all of the teams on the live satellite tracking which will be available on the race website at www.itera.co.uk
The most experienced and competitive UK teams are Team Leaping Fish, led by Nick Gracie, Endurancelife, Questars UK, and there are strong teams from Ireland with Rachel’s Irish Adventures one team which will be pushing for a podium place.
Two of the best US teams are taking part in the expedition race and will be looking for an international win. Strong Machine Adventure Racing and RIB Mountain Racing are currently in the top two spots in the ARWS North America rankings. Strong Machine have raced at ITERA before and taken part in many international expedition races, and both teams also organise their own events in the North America Series.
There are experienced Dutch teams in both races, including the organisers of Raid Lowlands which was last year’s European championships. Another competitive team in the Expedition race is On Sight Navigatoria of Poland, who have a racer from India with them for this race.
The ITERA lite start list is equally strong with teams from Estonia, Holland, USA, Belgium, France, Canada and the UK. The winners of this race will win a free place at next year’s ARWS European Championship in Denmark, while the expedition race winners claim a free World Championship spot at Raid in France in 2026.
Teams will be registering at Badaguish on Friday and Saturday, and will find out more about the adventure ahead at the race briefing!
News, video and photos will be posted to the Durty Events, SleepMonsters.com and Adventure Racing World Series social media pages.
For more information about ITERA and a full team list see www.itera.co.uk
