Three teams from the Czech Republic, each consisting of two men and one woman, have won free places in the “Expedition-Trophy 2006” race.

The three were winners in a selection round held on the weekend of November 5th and 6th near the city of Mlada Boleslav, some 80 km from Prague, on a former military-tank range.

The format of the selection round differed from the previous rounds in Russia, because the teams used off-road 4x4 vehicles instead of quad bikes (ATVs).

The “Expedition-Trophy” team arrived on Friday, together with representatives of the Czech sponsors briefed the participants in the selection round on what to expect over the next two days and stressed that those who won, had to present themselves in Murmansk and take part in “Expedition-Trophy 2006” race from February 23th to March 8th, 2006.

On Saturday the monster 4x4’s gathered at the start point. Although 10 teams were taking part in the competition, some more cars joined in just for the drive because, asserted their drivers, it was “madly interesting.”

The events on the course were no less interesting for all the Czech participants. Every success on a special task was greeted with exuberant delight and shouts of “Dobre! Dobre!”

Compared with the special tasks in the Russian selection rounds, the completion of the special tasks in the Czech round was more complex and difficult. All the tasks have been organized in sections of 12 or 13 control points scattered across the whole territory of the range. Participants received a list of control points, their GPS coordinates, GPS units, digital cameras and were sent hunting. The task became complicated when it was realised that, according to the rules, the control points had to be visited in the order in which they were specified in the task. Sometimes this meant a team visiting one control point and having to travel five km to the next one and then return practically to where they had been for the next one. It was so difficult that some teams were only able to complete one section of special tasks during the whole competition.

It was also interesting to see the different approaches to photography adopted by the Czech teams compared to the Russian teams. The photographs taken by the Russian crews in the Russian selection rounds reflected a ‘business approach’ while the Czech photos, almost universally, portrayed a spirit of ‘adventure’. “From the photos of faces of the Czech participants it was clear this was a real and exciting event,” commented one of the “Expedition-Trophy” organizers.

Many of the Czech participants requested copies of the photos taken against a background of points, as memories of the contest.

Performance on the special tasks was judged by the Czech organizers, the award of points was made by the Russian side. The results were then combined and after long debates three winners were determined:

Crew №3 (Czech Republic - Latvia):

• Zakis Edgars — captain;
• Gagik Sargsyan;
• Eugeniya Marchenko.

Crew №9 (Czech Republic):

• Tomash Romanovsky — captain;
• Jiri Caha;
• Petra Nemcova.

Crew №7 (Czech Republic - Latvia):

• Georgijs Kusko — captain;
• Pavel Barabashev;
• Tatyana Avanesova.