Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25059
BY martin dugard PHOTOGRAPHY: DAN MORRIS POINTS ON T E MAP - - unrepentant about human rights abuses, lured there by Japan's biggest tobacco company at the same time an international anti-smoking convention in Beijing was predicting 100 million Chinese would die from smoking in the next decade, the. race took place just a few hundred miles upriver from the Three Gorges project that will dam the Yangtze and displace millions. The race even runs straight through a Buddhist temple. Politically incorrect and proud of it. Only in the People's Republic. The MSOQ was set up much like more traditional adventure races: Four-person teams, each hav ing at least one individual of the opposite sex. Competitors crossed mountains, navigated rivers and trekked through forests. Methods of locomotion were as common as trail running, mountain biking and kayak ing; as offbeat and extreme as rappelling and off-road inline skating. "We wanted to create an event that would challenge and inspire athletes," says race direc tor Murphy Reinschreiber, "It had to be hard but it had to be fast. We also wanted it to be do-able by average athletes, The twist was the stage racing format, Much like • • • • • •• not just supermen and women." the Tour de France, athletes raced hard all day, then stopped for the night before resuming again in the morning. Adventure races are traditionally nonstop affairs, but the reasoning behind the change was sound: shorter days meant faster, more competitive racing. Teams wouldn't grind out mile after laborious mile. Speed was king, not mere perseverance. • • • _. '-, -t.\'- •