Swedish Armed Forces Adventure Team wins the Subaru Canada Adventure Racing World Championship

The Subaru Canada Adventure Racing World Championship concluded in Penticton after 10 days of non-stop racing across the mountains of British Columbia.

PENTICTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA, October 8, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Subaru Canada Adventure Racing World Championship concluded in Penticton after 10 days of non-stop racing across the mountains, forests and rivers of British Columbia. The greatest test of endurance in the sporting world, the competition required teams of 4 to stay together throughout and navigate a wilderness course through terrain few would venture into.

The winners, and now 3 time Adventure Racing World Champions, were the Swedish Armed Forces Adventure Team in a time of 116 hours 6 minutes, and the final team to cross the finish line were Orienteering Utah, after 217 hours 20 minutes and 45 seconds!

Teams travelled from 26 nations to Penticton in the Okanagan region, and only received the full course details the day before the race start. Until then they didn’t even know the start would be in Pemberton, a 7 hour bus ride from the race HQ.

Some teams had qualified for a free place by winning Adventure Racing World Series (ARWS) expedition length races around the world, or by winning Championship races for each continental region in the ARWS. The global series includes more than 80 races, and the annual World Championship is the ultimate ambition of thousands of participating teams. It’s also the ambition of many races in the series to host the World Championship, and for 2025 that honour was given to Expedition Canada, organised by the Hoodoo Adventures.

The 800km course they prepared gave the visiting teams a unique and immersive experience of the British Columbia landscapes and culture. Course designer Alex Man commented, “We had a top five things we wanted racers to see in British Columbia. We needed them to see glaciers, experience hard BC single-track mountain biking and white water paddling on our rivers, plus big bushwhacks, and plain old amazing scenery!”

The epic World Championship course delivered them all, and began with riding on some world class single-track bike trails at Pemberton, before taking teams on a trek into glacial alpine terrain, then an 80km pack-raft stage the length of the Carpenter and Seton Lakes, which finished with a whitewater river descent. There was much more white water to come, on the high volume Thompson River and on the smaller, technical rapids of the Nahatlatch River.

Teams stopped at the Historic Hat Creek Ranch on one trek, where there was a tree planting task, and were welcomed into the lands of 5 different indigenous peoples. The crux of the race was the final 62km alpine trek which included tough bushwhacking where teams moved at 1km/hour, and a rope descent down the granite face of Vicuna Peak. Some teams experienced bad weather on this stage and took up to 48 hours to complete the trek, while the lucky ones who had clear skies enjoyed a stunning 360 degree panorama of the BC mountains.

The final stage was in Canadian canoes on Okanagan Lake, taking teams back to the finish line in Penticton via checkpoint number 50, set on the beach beside the historic paddle steamer the S.S. Sicamous.

After a closely contested race The Swedish Armed Forces Adventure Team pulled away from their rivals on the final stages to take a third Adventure Racing World Championship title. The team comprised Malin Hjalmarsson, John Karlsson, Per Vestling and Erik Jonsson. For Vestling it was a successful return to Canada as he raced the previous World Championship there (in Newfoundland) in 2004, where his team finished second by a mere 20 seconds!

The Estonian ACE Adventure/La Sportiva team took second place and defending champions 400team LSN of France completed an all-European podium. Team Sardine Racing (New Zealand) and Bend Racing/4 Hour Fuel (USA) completed the top five places and there were 13 different nationalities in the top 20 places. The global adventure racing community was also represented by race volunteers travelling from all over the world and at the International Adventure Racing Conference, which was held immediately after the World Championship.

Speaking after the race Malin Hjalmarsson said, “I think we had one of the best races ever, we helped each other out all of the time and didn’t bother about any other team.” Eric Jonsson added, “It’s all about the team in any situation, the team is always first.”

Team Captain John Karlsson said, “This race was one of the hardest to plan for, but we had a good schedule with some alternatives, and knew which stages would be make or break. The big trek was one of the hardest in my whole life and we had to suck it up knowing it would be as hard for all the other teams.”
Per Vestling said, “We didn’t sleep at all for the first two nights, then we had 4 hours sleep due a dark zone stop, and almost no more the whole race. I think I’ve never slept this little in a race before!”

All of the teams had their own unique stories, including seeing bear and bald eagle, sleeping in caves when lost, recovering from capsizes in white water rapids, towing broken bikes through the night to the finish line, and being taken into homes by families along the route. With team work, endurance and a never-give-up spirit, the teams made their way to the finish line over a period of 4 days and at the final count 39 completed the full course with all checkpoints found. Others dropped some checkpoints to get around the course in time, and some had team members drop out, but of the 56 teams that started only 6 withdrew.

On the finish line Sachiko Tokoro of Team East Wind from Japan summed up the racer experience, saying, “It was a big adventure. This is what we came for!” The Raid AR team from Poland had similar feelings, saying, “It was a beautiful, extreme adventure!”

At the race closing ceremony Race Director Lyndie Seddon reflected on a successful World Championship, saying, “It takes a big community to stage a race of this scale and we could not have done it without the countless hours of selfless work by our race staff and volunteers, the good will of many communities on the route, the support of our sponsors, including title sponsors Subaru Canada, and the expertise and trust of the Adventure Racing World Series. Above all we are thankful to the teams who were inspired to come and explore our beautiful lands here in British Columbia and the Okanagan region.”

ARWS CEO Heidi Muller presented the prizes, including $50,000 US in prize money and a free place to the winners for next year’s World Championship, which will be held on the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

Speaking after he race she said, “To host an Adventure Racing World Championship is both a great honour and responsibility, and a very hard thing to do. It requires total commitment and dedication over months and months of preparation and the vision and courage to present teams with a challenge which is at the limit of what is possible. Expedition Canada has delivered a great World Championship and teams will travel home with a place in their hearts for the big and beautiful landscapes of British Columbia. I’m sure many will come back again and that the millions of viewers from around the world who followed the race will now have British Columbia on their travel bucket list. Our World Championship should open new horizons and inspire people to explore the world and their own limits, and I think we’ve done that in Canada.”

All photographs Guillermo Gutierrez; https://www.guillermogtz.com/ Instagram; https://www.instagram.com/_guillermogutierrez

Review the race tracking and team positions; https://live.enabledtracking.com/2025arwc/

See full race information; https://www.expeditionracecanada.ca/

The 2026 Adventure Racing World Championship will take place in Corsica; https://www.arwc2026.com/en/corsica-is-magic-english/

About the Adventure Racing World Series

The Adventure Racing World Series (ARWS) is a global platform uniting professional adventure races in iconic locations to serve a worldwide community of adventurers and endurance athletes. The series includes over 80 events on 6 continents in 2025.

A different race hosts the AR World Championship each year and the series consists of Qualifier, Regional and Stage races in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa and Oceania.

The ARWS CEO is South African Businesswoman Heidi Muller, the former Race Director of Expedition Africa. The Adventure World Series was established in 2001 and is a company registered in Bentonville, Arkansas, USA.

More information is on the ARWS website; www.arworldseries.com
Follow the ARWS on all major social media platforms @arworldseries
For press information contact media@arworldseries.com and for all other inquiries info@arworldseries.com

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The Subaru Canada Adventure Racing World Championship

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