Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25044
a. venture race. I hat means mixea-sex tea J!lght and day thrc;>ugh the wilderness rivers, rappel ling clrffs, tramping through jun racing began with the Raid Gauloises in 1989. The concept For the unawarec,..the Eco-Challenge is known as an d to recreate the struggles of explorers from centuries past, wading exotic countries without outside assistance. The emphasis was geared so heavily towards experiencing a grand adventure, as opposed to competition or dramatization, that the French concept wasn't a race at all. Rather, teams would do the Raid Gauloises to tou�h the sort of adventure that modern living doesn't allow. Only when participants and the media asked for ran kings did orga nizers change the format. The title "The Toughest Race on Earth" soon but the accent on adventure and experiencing nature alwa took precedence. iiiiiiiiiiW:;;;iiiiiiil The Eco-Challenge copied this format when foun Mark Burnett brought these 350-mile, week-long to America in 1995. Burnett, himself a two-time Raid fin isher, shared the Raid organizers' vision that adve racing was the next big thing in endurance sports-an he was right. But there were problems with the first Eco in Utah strength enabled her to run 135 miles th rough Death Valley. So as Smith appraised her knee, about to weep from the rea lization she was on the verge of quitting a race for only the second time in her life, the camera mal] thrusting his lens in her face was a decided nuisance. She quietly asked the man to leave. He did, only to return a moment later. This time, a friend stepped forward to shield Smith from the camera. "Hav.e some respect for the moment, " pleaded the friend. "Hey, " was the response, "it doesn't matter. She signed a waiver." A waiver meaning that television could film anyth ing, anytime-even the most bitter moment of fa il ure. A waiver mean ing TV, in effect, had precedence over the human condition the Eco-Challenge claimed to trumpet. A waiver meaning, fi nally and most pointedly, that the Eco-Chal lenge was no longer a purist race through the wilderness, but a made-for-TV docudrama, all but pre-scripted to include moments like Smith's. "All this climb ing and rappelling is boring, " one producer commented. "We need some action." Technical glitches, beginner's jitters. And while MTV ered the event, the slow agony of miles through wilderness didn't quite fit their shaky-cam interpretation MTV dropped out while the Discovery Channel sidled u to Burnett in time for the 1996 Eco in British Colu Not only did they buy film rights, and send 14 ca crews into the wilderness by helicopter, but they went F;"'ႀ;;===;;;.I far as to buy a big chunk of the race. A chunk big enough Eco-Challenge was renamed Discovery Channel Eco-Challenge, and enough that Mark Burnett became a paid employee. The BC race sti ll had its flaws, among them two midrace course anges, but it made great TV even though competitors groused "unpaid actors." The end of the Eco-Challenge documentary four nights on Discovery even featured a self-congratulato to those 14 wacky camera crews who'd suffered through and helicopter flights to get it all on film. Somewhere the pu nsibility that spawned adventure racing had veered sharply off course. the best and worst of the change was saved for the 1997 Eco Australia-the rhino's horn jutting up from the world's oldest) and the Great Barrier Reef offered enough poiso crocodiles and sharks to ensure adventure, if nothing corner. The Outback, the rainforest (at 100 million years, one ' most all of the world's most deadly snakes reside in Queensland. ce lecture on the swift death their bites offer had some racers I they could bag the race and fly back home.)