Adventure Junkie | Australia's Premier Adventure Racing Events

Last year's individual male winner, Damon Goerke, shares his thoughts about last years race and about upcoming event on 6th of October.

How many times have you done UMC?

I did the very first one and a couple more along the way, but haven't been back for at least 10 years.

Any other remarkable stories from previous years?

Not really. I remember Rob Preston fell out of his boat the last time I did it.

What is your highlight (the best part of the course)?

Group of four boys and two girls from St Leonards school are getting ready to tackle Snowy Hydro Upper Murray Challenge this year as a team of six. Mark Slykhuis, well known adventure racing and multisport athlete and coach from St Leondards school is leading the team, and promted few questions to them. AJ team is looking forward to support young generation in our events!

Hi Guys, nice to chat to you, what is the reason, why you are doing all this?

'We have been part of the schools adventure racing program for a couple of years now and are keen to take on a tougher challenge where will be required to really test ourselves. The UMC seems like the perfect event with three roughly equally tough legs of mountain-biking, paddling and trail running. Working with our team over the day will require us to support, motivate and encourage each other. Our aim is to complete the event in around 10 hours.'

We were standing on a shore line as long as we could trying to avoid going into the freezing waters of  Åresjönlake. This is a classic moment when I feel sorry for doing all these races, especially looking into the eyes of my child leaving him with someone else (lucky it was my mom this time). However, there was not much time for reflection, so I jumped into the boat and headed off for a quick warm up.  

Background: Åre Extreme Challenge is Scandinavia's first and oldest multisport adventure race and the Open European Championship in Multisport. It is hold in the stunning ski resort Åre. Tourism there started in 1882 and in 2008 Åre was listed in top 10 world ski resorts. Few MTB races of world level were held there over the years.

While AdventureJunkie team (Serge Kurov and Josh Roy) raced and won the Geoquest-Wildside-Special-Edition-Half course, our friend and known adventurer Tom Chadbourne from Perth was watching online tracking and following social media controversial comments. Tom is the action man, so here are some thoughts which are closely aligned with AJ team thoughts, and already are or will become AdventureJunkie Rules some time soon. We would like to encourage discussion on our FB page, to come up with more defined set of rules and ultimately better events.

A couple of ideas came up after the weekend:

Tom Chadbourne is one of the most mysterious figures in the contemporary adventure racing circles. Most winning teams consist of people who have been around last 5 years at least with minor exceptions. Vast experience is considered a must have for successful expedition racing when we’re talking about public perception.

When Tom appeared on the podium  of X-Marathon  2017, all what we knew was his WA origin and super fitness. Soon after (in adventure racing terms) he is winning XPD and going to the World Championships this year

At the last Sprint Series event, I was really surprised to find out that there was a couple expecting marked course and obstacles, and were surprised to find out they need to bring their own bikes to the event. This came to my mind, the term “adventure race” got blurred with introduction of obstacle races to the event scene.  So I decided to put together some broad glossary, which I would use as a reference material for newbies.