Our trip to Primal Quest this year turned out to be more than just a race for us. With the death of Nigel Allott, it changed the nature of the race and opened a whole debate on what should happen if a fatality does occur during racing.

For us we were turned around just short of the orienteering section and along with other teams proceeded back to the previous TA

On arriving at the Transition, we were immediately informed that there had been a rock fall and Nigel had been killed.

What followed was an emotional 30 hours of race stoppage where debate raged over what should happen to the race.

The race co-ordinators held a team meeting for the top 10 teams as they were ranked at the time of the accident and held an open forum on ways to continue.

Suggestions included a procession to the finish with no further racing, gifting the win to AROC and second to Montrail with the remaining teams racing for 3rd place onwards and many other suggestions.

Even though AROC and Montrail were leading at the time we were only 60 hours into a 130-hour race, we felt to gift the race to them wouldn’t have been fair indication of what could have eventuated in the race.

There seemed to be two quite different views on the subject, one that people were voicing publicly and one that people seemed almost ashamed of voicing – that the race should continue in as close to the original format that was possible.

As this discussion was going on Nathan got our team together to put his view forward, that the race should continue, our whole team agreed. Nathan’s comments created tension from some teams but as the process continued it became obvious that over 90% of the teams were in agreement with what he had said.

The basis of Nathan’s suggestion was that we were all there to race. That in other sporting events in the event of such a tragedy the event would continue and that the president had been set last year in the Raid, when the event continued after the death of French woman, Dominique Robert and Montrail went on to take the title.

Later that day there was a ceremony held in memory of Nigel and a few hours later it was announced that the race would continue in a shortened format with adjusted times.

The question that this whole episode poses is why the organisation didn’t have a plan in place for if such a tragedy occurred. Even if it wasn’t an official document, the organisers should have been aware that there is always the potential for loss of life in an Adventure race.

Adventure racing is about going places where other people don’t go, finding the fastest routes through rugged terrain, personal and team risk management and for the top teams pushing those boundaries to try to win races. Everyone who competes, especially at the elite level is aware of what the consequences of what a wrong decision can lead to. If you talk to any adventure racer they can probably recount many occasions where they had a narrow escape or were very lucky a situation didn’t escalate into something extremely serious. People having rocks come loose in there hands while climbing steep and exposed faces, rock fall on moraine/scree slopes, being bluffed out in the dark while operating on little sleep, crossing fast flowing rivers, the list goes on and on.

Sleep deprivation, different strategies and route choices are what make Adventure racing what it is.

We are some of the modern day explorers, when Columbus and Cook set out searching for new lands they knew the consequences of things going wrong and so did those around them. Granted the world holds a lot less secrets these days, the undiscovered lands have been chartered, we use maps (although sometimes they’re not much help either) but the element of exploration is still there. Individuals and Teams do it for many reasons but the element of risk is one of the elements that draw us to the sport.

Maybe it is because Adventure racing is a relatively new sport and has been fortunate enough to have minimal exposure to fatalities, or maybe we have all been trying to fool ourselves into thinking it won’t happen in our sport. Whatever the reason the reality is that as the sport progresses and people look to push the boundaries further the potential risk is only going to increase and it is up to the individuals and their teams to increase their skills and make smart choices.

In Motor racing or cycling a death is still tragic, but the races continue to completion with as minimal disruption as possible. Likewise in mountaineering fellow climbers continue to push for the summit after fatalities, often dedicating their achievements to those who weren’t so fortunate.

I believe completing the events and racing hard to the finish is honouring the memory of fallen competitors in the truest way possible.