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EMA
2001 - RACE BRIEFING
The
SBCA (Sociedade Brasileira de Corridas de Aventura), in partnership with
the Pará state government (Production Secretary) and Paratur (Pará
State official tourism office), challenge fifty athletic teams to cross
five hundred and fifty kilometers of rain forest, cerrados, natural fields,
grass, river beaches and large rivers with "igarapés"
in a maximum time of one hundred and forty hours.
Realized, between November 25th and December 1st of 2001, at Pólo
Tapajós, west region of Pará, one more edition of Expedição
Mata Atlântica, "EMA 2001 Amazônia".
EMA is the Brazilian version of adventure races created in New Zealand
during the 80's, and the largest in Latin America
In 2001, EMA became part of the Adventure Race World Series, which also
includes Raid Gauloises e Southern Traverse (New Zealand), Eco-Challenge
(USA) and Raid the North (Canada).
Brazil gained more interest in the competition four years ago, when Alexandre
Freitas returned from a trip to New Zealand and created the SBCA and EMA.
The teams are comprised of four athletes of mixed gender (mandatory one
member must be of the opposite sex). The teams shall practice trekking,
mountain biking, swimming, hope technics and rowing (inflatable kayaks
and local boats), and always orient themselves by maps and compass, a
fundamental process for the competitors to remain in the EMA.
Each section of the course had its own beauty, due to its hardness level:
during the canoeing section, the athletes confronted all kind of waters
and scenarios (calm or running water, enhabbited or covered areas, muddy
or crystal clear rivers, wind, waves); during the trekking athletes came
across areas unexplored by mankind; on the hope technics contemplating
part of the whole course was possible.
Brazilians and foreigners participated in the event, which shows growth
of the adventure sport. In addition, it gives the Amazonia region the
opportunity to become economically self-sustainable from similar events.
Of the 600-person event staff, 92% were local inhabitants.
The adventure race is a sporting event that has grown as much in Brazil
as outside. The State of Pará it is geographically privileged for
this event, having 50% of the total tourist attraction of the Amazonia
region and being fully supplied in hydric reserves.
The government realized the importance of EMA 2001 for the region.
According to Paratur president Adenauer Góes, more than one million
reais were given by Paratur as support to the event, which also had the
sponsorship of Guaraná Antarctica. "Tourism is one axis of
development for the state and one of our major priorities. Support for
a competition like this will no doubt help in increasing the flow of visitors
in our region and will take it out to the world." Góes believes
in the repetition of such initiatives as Expedição Mata
Atlântica in the next years.
Over the 90 kilometers of road PA-254 (80 kilometers from Monte Alegre),
organization members took shelter, journalists and athletes without classification.
Known as the "Head Quarter" of the race, it became a shelter
for one hundred and fifty local families at the end of the event. Before
EMA 2001, the Government of Para state made improvements to the area,
such as the maintenance to part of the road and the extension of 13 kilometers
of electrical cable net. A school, health clinics and malls were promised
to the inhabitants.
Getting from one EMA point to another, the athletes have to reach the
PCs (Control Points) and/or ATs (Transaction Areas), where they have their
arrival time registered by the collaborators in charge and, also, change
equipment. In total, there were twenty-three PCs through which the teams
had to cross. For the first level, the teams left PC1 and swam the 300
meters that separate both margins of Curuá-Uma river, a tributary
of the Amazon, reaching PC-2. The 12 kilometers that separated PC-2 and
PC-3 were navigated on local boats over Amazon River. Until this point,
Brazilian teams were fighting for the leading position, but were passed
by the Canadian team Subaru Outback.
A classification loss happens when a team arrives late in a section, or
is excluded in the Dark Zone, so they would not do any activities during
the night, or simply decides just not to proceed. If the organization
determines the cut of any team that is behind schedule, there is the possibility
of choice for another category of the competition, lowering from "Expedição"
(original course) to "Aventura" (reduced course). The second
choice is also suggested to the athletes that only came to see the region,
and not compete for the victory.
During an interview with EMA's organization staff, Jean Pierre Scharwz,
who already knew the region and participated in the race, said that believed
in a wiser winner, because "the Amazonia region is very hot. The
temperature can get as high as 40ºC to 45ºC during the period
between 10h and 14h. Physical preparation alone will not be enough to
confront a race as this one. The athletes should worry about hydration
and food, among choosing the right hours to sleep, mainly on the first
two days of the event.
A team captain compares the athletes to "fishers and hunters who
do not ruin the natural resources, but have a love of nature." Still,
they are warlike and aware of what is happening.
Pierre Swiss is consolidated in the Amazônia as owner of a tourism
company and another one of reforestation. Its team was composed of a Swiss,
Marc Arnold, a Brazilian, Jair Axe, and a German, Vera Fehrenbach. However,
it bet in Brazilian winners and it twisted therefore, "despite the
high level of the foreign teams.
To the few the favorite person or thing had been if revealing. To the
end, two teams disputed the leadership: the Nokia Finnish and the São
Paulo Radical Otter. The first one made an impression on the doctors for
having suffered so few injuries and not showing fatigue on their faces.
Although European, the team suffered less than the athletes of the Otter,
who complained of the high temperature and had to rest three hours before
catching its bicycles. Mika Harvinem, of the Nokia team, said that the
test "is difficult, but not so bad thus." Asked what the team
would need to win the competition, he said "luck."
"
"
Among many national and international teams, Way-Way is distinguished.
Non-English, its members are aboriginal and this is the name of its tribe
and its dialect. The Foroxá chieftain received the invitation from
the organizers of EMA 2001 and chose Sacraia, the captain, Eliudi, Uutu
and Inasa for the team (situated next the Trumpets) for will be distinguished
in the daily sport activities: walked, races, rowed and some games of
soccer, beyond sporadical pedaling - its only preparation for the test.
The relation of the aboriginals with the whites is pacific, and having
a team to represent them in the competition was well accepted by all.
On the first day of the official encampment, they made a dance presentation
for the journalists, athletes and organizers of the EMA.
Beyond the Expedition Atlantic Bush demanding preparation of its participants,
the 2001 edition counted on an aggravating one: the chosen region. In
addition to the high temperatures, the Amazona presents primary, closed
bushes with few references, and it is full of insects and poisonous animals.
Two teams had one of its members injured: Pablo Rabbit, of Iram Hi Tech,
complained of pains in the left leg and Patricia Borges, of Pangéia,
of pains in her knee. Both were in the same stretch, the third stage of
the test, where the athletes completed the trekking of thirty kilometers
between the community of Culheiras and Monte Alegre city.
Already an experienced athlete, Trisha Westman, from team Subaru/Outback,
ones of the favorites, suffered dehydration problems. The group made a
brief rest to try to restart trekking, but they had to return to the encampment.
In the same stretch where the athletes were injured, of the fifty teams,
ten had already been declassified and fifteen disputed the category Adventure.
The athletes faced exposure to diverse dangers, intrinsic in such a way
to the matrix adventurer of the race, as much as to the characteristics
of the region. Nevertheless, EMA 2001 had a mega-structure of security
for the athletes, organizers and any people involved in the competition.
Eighty professionals, consisting of firemen, pilots, doctors, used two
airplanes, three helicopters (one of the Brazilian Air Force), five boats
and fifteen vehicles. Colonel Aurelia Landmarks Lopes Aquino, of the Military
Body of Firemen of the State of Pará and one of the responsible
ones for the mega-operation of security, commented on the two mounted
projects of a rescue for the EMA: "We have the rescue in the water,
with thirty and five men of promptitude, and the terrestrial one, where
twenty people are located between the Mount cities Alegre and Alenquer."
The advantage of the team is to have great experience in water operations,
since the rivers of the region function as roads and ways of access and
30% of the disputes of EMA 2001 happened in the Amazonian rivers. For
emergency cases, each team obtains a transmitting radio localizer, the
Beacon, by which satellite information made it possible for rescue teams
to arrive at the place of the incidents.
This was of the biggest operations carried out by the Military Body of
Firemen of Pará, and had its success guaranteed for if dealing
with an integration with the Brazilian Air Force, the organization of
the EMA, the Port administration, the Military Police and the municipal
city halls of some cities of the Polar region of Tapajóós,
Santaréém, Mount Alegre and Alenquer. The event possessed
a network of radios consisting of seven fixed bases and seventy-four mobiles.
The code used was the international "Q," aimed to give speed
and clarity to the communication system uniformly. The health problems
had not been so serious: at the end, the doctor of the EMA, Clemar, said
"most common had been wounds of the feet, small excoriations, insect
bites and allergic reactions to some plants of the Amazonian forest."
The most serious incident involved a member of the support team that had
an incident of anaphylactic shock (very strong allergic reaction) provoked
by the poison of a wasp that pricked him when he was in one of the control
ranks during the race.
After a dispute sufficiently balanced with the São Paulo Radical
Otter, the Finnish team Nokia Adventure arrived victorious at the end
of the EMA 2001 Amazônia, completing the competition in 112h33min,
to 2h33 on November 30. Victor Lopez, Luiz Antonio Teixeira, Rafael Reyes
and Marina Verdini, the athletes who had been in clos5e competition, arrived
at the end in 9h22, almost seven hours later.
Throughout the long week, the two teams had alternated themselves in the
leadership, and the definition alone happened in the two last stages:
the one hundred and ten kilometers of mountain bike and the eighty kilometers
in the catraias (boat typical to the region). The Finnish had opened a
great difference in relation to the Brazilians during the pedaling ones.
They had little initiated the last stage with more than two hours of advantage,
and had covered the rivers Will cover, Amazon and Tapajóós
in sped up way. To obtain the prize of sixty thousand reais, the European
athletes had adopted a strategy more conservative in the beginning, looking
for its limits to the test. From certain moment, they had started to impose
its rhythm.
The Brazilian team made one of its better performances, although they
have reached a similar place in other editions of the EMA. It fought with
international teams, in another manifestation of the increasing Brazilian
participation, and if it kept in the first position enters the Ranks of
Control eight and nine. In contrast to the Finnish, they had demanded
excessively of its resistance in the beginning of the test, what it made
them, according to captain Luiz Teixeira, to miss in some details, causing
the final disadvantage. The third place was for another Finnish team,
the APN, that was lost in Amazon for some hours.
From the twenty-six teams left, twelve finished the race in the "Expedição"
category and fourteen in "Aventura." The Brazilian team Oskalungas
won in the "Aventura" category, followed by team Aventura and,
in third place, Itatiaia.com, both from São Paulo. The race organizer,
Alexandre Freitas, said the objectives of EMA 2001 were fully reached,
"showing Amazônia to the world and integrating athletes, journalists
and organization to the local community. We mobilized a structure compatible
to a military operation and have to be grateful to all of our partners,
as they are also responsible for the success of EMA."
auhauhua
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