News for August 13, 1997

More Transfers

Cesar Solaun has signed a contract with the Banesto team for next year.

OZ Endurance Event

But therein lies the challenge in the sport-cum-television event of endurance adventure racing -- in which competitors pit their stamina and survival skills against some of the world's most spectacular and remote terrain.

For the first time, the Eco-Challenge race organized on broadcast worldwide by Walt Disney Corp.'s cable television network the Discovery Channel will be held outside North America.

Almost 200 competitors will line up just before dusk Monday in the tiny Queensland town of Undarra for the start of the approximately 300-mile (500-km) trek to Cairns, through national parks in some of Australia most beautiful and environmentally sensitive landscape.

During the next week, racers will bushwalk through knife-like spear grasses, canoe crocodile-infested rivers, raft rapids, traverse canyons, bicycle up and down mountain faces, trek through rain forest and kayak in shark-infested seas near the Great Barrier Reef.

Members of the 48 four-person teams will not be allowed to light fires or rescue flares during part of the journey because of the danger of setting off wildfires, and racers will be environmentally ''self-contained,'' taking all their garbage with them, including excrement, organizers said.

Racers have been asked to sign a legal waiver of liability which acknowledges the ''potential for death, serious physical injury and property loss.'

Listed as potential dangers are flash floods, treacherous terrain, avalanches and ''encounters with wild animals including, snakes, crocodiles, spiders, insects, cassowaries, dingoes, wild pigs and sharks.''

A cassowary is a vicious, fast-running ostrich-sized bird with a bony blade on top of its head and sharp toenail talons, and has a potentially fatal kick. The dingo is the wild dog of Australia.

Racers were briefed Sunday by crocodile and snake experts, traditional Aboriginal landowners and race organizer and Eco-Challenge founder Mark Burnett.

''No-one is here for death race 2000,'' Burnett said. ''We are all here for a good time.''

Burnett, who spent two days in a hospital after testing the course, said racers could expect stinging plants, thorny vines and leeches that will turn ``white socks red.''

Saltwater crocodiles should be avoided during the sea leg -- ''nothing challenges the crocodile'' -- and racers should stick to the trail in the rain forest.

''If you get off the trail and be creative and try to find your way out, you will probably never be seen again,'' Burnett said.

On the up-side, racers are competing for more than US dlrs 66,000 (Aust dlrs 75,000) in prize money and will receive television exposure in a planned five-hour documentary to be screened in 145 countries. Most of the teams have paid an entry fee of almost US dlrs 2,000 for the privilege.

A spokeswoman for the race said teams had traveled from the United States, Germany, Sweden, Mexico, Spain and the Netherlands to compete, as well as three Australian teams.

Queensland Resources Minister Howard Hobbs said the event would generate more than US dlrs 47 million (Aust dlrs 50 million) worth of advertising for the state, and downplayed claims racers and the TV crews following them would damage to the environment.

A leaked government briefing on the race said taxpayers may have to foot a US dlrs 15,000 (Aust dlrs 20,000) repair bill for national park roads. But event organizers are expected to gross US dlrs 1.75 million (Aust dlrs 2 million.

''To conduct the international challenge event ... provides considerable financial return to MPH Entertainment-Discovery Communications, at considerable cost to the general public of Australia,'' state opposition leader Peter Beattie quoted the briefing as saying.

The Discovery spokeswoman said there had been extensive consultation with government departments about environmental safeguards before a permit had been issued to allow the race to go ahead.