Gauloises - X-Adventure Fusion

A quick bit of adventure race news: the legendary Raid Gauloises event is now going to be using Salomon's International X-Adventure Raid series as qualifiers - at least that's what we think it means...

A rather baroque news release on the Raid Galuloises site takes a while to get to the point, but it seems to say that qualification for the 2002 Raid Gauloises in Vietnam this April, will be through the five-event X-Adventure series, with the top 30 ranked teams qualiifying for the main event.

'After four years of continual evolution, X-adventure has finally matured to the point which predestines them to become the qualification trial "par excellence" for the best teams striving to qualify for the Raid Gauloises.' It says.

The thinking is that the selection of teams purely on merit will revitalise the event and is part of a general trend in the sport towards championships with qualifying rounds. The X-Adventure events are shorter, 200-odd km races, while the Raid Gauloises itself runs over 1000 km of non-stop racing.

Another interesting point is the introduction of anti-doping controls in both the qualifying rounds and main event.