As usual this year’s Action Asia Challenge in Hong Kong provided lots of drama, and with over 300 participants, proved once again to be Asia’s leading one day adventure race. But how did it all begin?

In December of 1998 the Action Asia Challenge was established in Hong Kong – giving the territory its first adventure race. Starting at The Peak with over 200 participants, an Olympic title sponsor (Samsung) and several local celebrities, the sport was officially born in Hong Kong and has never looked back.

This is not surprising as adventure racing is now a worldwide phenomenon and perhaps the world’s fastest growing team endurance sport. The sport includes a multitude of adventure disciplines wrapped into one race competition – including, but not limited to: trail running, mountain biking, rock scrambling, rope skills, orienteering, and some form of paddling. Put simply, it’s a wilderness race from point A to point B (or an intersecting loop course) using any form of non-motorized transport that’s determined by the organizer with racers having to race and finish together to be ranked.

After the success of first Hong Kong event, the founding Race Director, Ryan S. Blair, was soon travelling the region to find local partners and develop the event into Asia’s first Adventure Racing Series. By 2000 National Geographic Channel was added as a production and broadcasting partner while regional tourism boards were starting to take notice of the exposure, and the fact that event and was obviously here to stay.

First time international adventure races were subsequently staged in Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan - where the country’s vice president started the event and even Taipei’s mayor participated.

But the events were started not only to have fun and challenge participants’ teamwork abilities and physical and mental limits.? Proceeds from the events are donated to the Action Asia Foundation, a non-profit organization that benefits underprivileged youth in Asia. Since its inception, the Foundation has developed a primary healthcare and education centre in Central Nepal, and has organized several outdoor activity oriented adventure camps in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand for economically challenged children.

This past December’s ‘Asia Miles Action Asia Challenge’ Hong Kong event, proved once again to be one of the top races in Asia. Former Challenge Technical Director, Stuart Sharpless, explains “Hong Kong is such a natural place for the sport of adventure racing to flourish and it’s no wonder that the territory was one of the first places to see the sport grow in Asia. Hong Kong has a large outdoor community and such quick access to jungle trails, ocean, rock climbing, and peaks that it’s perfect for training and staging events like adventure racing.”

Ironically, founding Race Director, Ryan S. Blair, who left Action Asia in 2001 to develop the region’s leading outdoor training company, was back at the Hong Kong race as a competitor for the first time, part of team THE NORTH FACE. Having won several of Asia’s top adventure races and the mixed division in AAC Macau earlier in the year, Blair’s THE NORTH FACE team was one of the teams expected to potentially win the event.

170 teams of two started the 50km route in Tai Lam Country Park which included sections of mountain biking, trail and road running, rock scrambling, cliff jumping, cargo net climbing, ocean kayaking, swimming, and rope work.

THE NORTH FACE team put together a solid race and had a commanding lead at the start of the final kayaking section of the course, and in sight of the finish line, when their boat started to fill up with water because of a crack in the bottom. Unfortunately, the organizers had not checked the boats for damages during transport and a few boats had unexpected cracks.

This markedly slowed up Blair and team-mate Piers Touzel and eventually saw them capsize five times, leaving the way clear for the Taiwanese Exustar team of veteran Suen Jyi Shan and newcomer Liu Chic Yun to clinch victory. The duo completed the approximately 50km course in a scorching time of just less than five hours.

Blair and Touzel still officially finished fourth, but could only rue their misfortune: “It’s really hard to take,” Blair said. “We are pretty strong paddlers and we thought if we could get into the kayaks first we would go on to win. That’s exactly what we did and we had a lead of over 300 meters before we noticed that water was getting into our kayak. After that there was nothing we could do. Once a sit-on top style kayak fills up with water you are going to slow up and flip over, and that’s what happened. It’s really cruel luck for us. We had the race sewn up, but I guess this time it was just not meant to happen.”

The Taiwanese pair of Suen and Liu made the most of their opportunity but Suen was quick to point out that lady luck was definitely on their side: “Ryan and Piers were well ahead and it looked like we were going to have to settle for second place,” Suen said. “But once we saw them flip over we knew that something was wrong and we were able to take advantage of it. It was hard on them but we’re happy to take the win after a great race.”

The top local Chinese - Hong Kong pair, Kong Chi-ming and Tsang Siu-keung of team Powerbar Beyond Limits, took third place and were satisfied with their own day’s work and looked back on a job well done. “We made up some ground on the running section as we were back in about 10th place at the start, but we kept up a constant pace and to get third is a great result for us,” Kong said.

Other top division finishers include Women’s team Champions Wyan Chow and Sean Ho of Powerbar Bauhinia, and Mixed team Champions Claire Price Frederic Bourquin of Optimum Performance Studio.

The Action Asia Events Director who designed the course was delighted with the success of the event. “This has undoubtedly been the best race yet, It was really tough on Team THE NORTH FACE who were in the lead before disaster struck. But if there was a sportsmanship award going today they should get it because we couldn’t change the overall placing despite their misfortune and they accepted our decision. They were moral winners on the day”