Yes these folk are fit, but they are not world class athletes,
Dunc - this was a World Championship event, therefore by definition, these ARE world class athletes!
I can see your point, but I think you're missing something. What you're missing is the endurance element - these guys (and a few of them are good friends of mine) aren't going to win any 100m medals. But that's because they're in a completely different sport. Would you call a top-level Ironman triathlete "not world class" ? Or a top-flight orienteer? Marathon kayaker? Mountain biker? Because that's the background a lot of top Adventure Racers come from. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I've yet to see anyone from a track athletics background do well in AR. Like my old PE teacher would say "fit for [i]what[/i]?" Just because AR doesn't attract the media attention that, say, BMX did in the Olympics, doesn't make it any less of a world class sport.
I'd also defy most people to (just taking a selection of the people in that vid) out-bike Mike Kloser, out-navigate Chris Forne, out-think Tom Gibbs, out-paddle Wayne Oxenham. And that's [i]fresh[/i], after 4 days of minimal sleep, most people aren't even [b]standing[/b], never mind still running. Even the guys at the back, including the team I was reporting for, are capable of pushing themselves for 5 days on about 6hrs sleep. There's not many 'average joes' who are happy to do that regularly.
No beef with people doing this, same as most hobbies, but why on earth did Channel 4 used to show a load of students doing this sort of thing on Sunday morning?
I saw it a couple of times last year anyway. It annoyed me because I know they sometimes had good stuff like PROFESSIONAL freeride or DH events in that timeslot.
I don't know, to be honest. It depends what gets more viewers.
I used to enjoy watching the downhill stuff on C4 of a morning, but the way it was shot always made it look so slow. I know it probably wasn't, but it looked it.
I got on telly for the MS challenge UK. Me on the bike at the front of the pack - I gave the camera man the gun show. As you do.