[Paddlewise] Eco-Challenge `97 Australia event

Hello,

The Discovery channel is running their coverage of last year's 528 km
Eco-Challenge race which was held in Australia.  Competitors are told the
race route only a day before the event begins. This event includes
bushwalking, cliff climbing and rappelling, river canoeing and some
class IV rafting, bicycling and 50 miles of seakayaking as well as venemous 
spiders and snakes, saltwater crocs, hallucinations, etc.  Competitors 
participate in a pre-qualifying test.  However, in tonight's episode 
(the documentary began last night and continues for the next two nights
and airs again in its entirety on Sunday, April 26), it becomes 
evident that one of the challengers is in trouble when it is discovered 
he cannot swim (a portion of the race course involves swimming a very 
short distance across a gorge to climb a canyon wall). 

A big part of the race involves competitors knowing where they
are and where they are going.  Many end up lost.  In the '95 
Eco-challenge, the leading team realized the following team was hot on
their tails.  Seeing an opportunity for an edge, the leading team 
paddled off-course, turned off their head lamps and wait for the following
team to pass them in the dark heading in the wrong direction.  Then
the leading team back-paddled to return to the correct course and on
to victory leaving the following team lost in the dark looking for
missing headlamps.

In the seakayaking portion (not shown on the Discovery documentary
yet), many of the competitors find themselves in over their heads (no
pun intended).  It's obvious watching some of the preview footage that many
have spent little if *any* time paddling sea kayaks.  One of the teams
that had to be rescued at sea was the Navy seals team.  The winning team
of the '97 Eco-challenge (same winner of the '96 Eco-challenge) consisted
paddlers with a lot of experience.  I can't help but wonder how many 
competitors heard about the "sea kayaking portion of the race" and
thought "flat water."  One of the team members of the winning team, Nagle 
of Eco-Internet, will be paddling this year's Texas Water Safari.  

I've been scratching my head over what "tests" were conducted to
determine qualifications.  The challenger claiming to have never paddled 
a canoe before is from one of the least experienced teams (backpacking
with items such as a walkman and cheese board) but happens to be
bringing a lot of publicity to the race via participating in the
name of charitable organizations. 

Anyhow, the coverage so far has been very interesting and with some
really nice cinematography.

Websites to check out for more info and war stories....

http://www.moutainzone.com/features/eco97/index.html
http://www.ecochallenge.com
http://www.discovery.com/indep/ecochallenge/schedule.html
http://www.yuri.harvard.edu/~nagle/  (website of captain of Team 
       Eco-Internet, Eco-Challenge's 96 and 97 winners)

Cheers,

Jackie
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