Compiled by Outside Online

October 18, 2001 A total of 75 four-person teams will test their mettle against the elements and each other this Sunday at the start of the 2001 Eco-Challenge race on New Zealand's South Island.

The race carries a $50,000 first prize.

This year's 240-mile course will feature five modes of travel: mountain biking, river rafting, horseback riding, mountaineering, and fixed ropes. All team members must complete each stage to continue. If any team member becomes injured or ill, that team is eliminated.

USA's team Eco-Internet, which won the Eco-Challenge Sabah 2000 in Borneo in 5 days, 23 hours, and 41 minutes, will return to compete along with top-finishing international teams from previous years.

Time is not the only challenge. Teams also must avoid illnesses that have struck teams in the past. Leptospirosis, which brings high fever, chills, muscle pain and, in rare cases, death, affected some of last year's teams (see "Adventure Retching," Outside magazine, December 2000). Viral Meningitis, which also brings headaches, nausea, neck and back pain, and possible death, struck teams in the 1997 race in Australia. Both are transmitted through contaminated water.

The Eco-Challenge is the brainchild of Mark Burnett, a three-time veteran of the Raid Galouises adventure race and executive producer of the CBS television show, "Survivor." Though criticized in past years by the adventure racing community for allegedly squashing a competing event, Burnett has successfully built the Eco-Challenge into the most widely recognized adventure race worldwide.

"Anybody who says the Eco-Challenge isn't a race is ridiculous," Burnett told Outside magazine in April, 2000. "But people like a big show. And when the Eco-Challenge comes to town, the circus arrives in a big way."

Portions of the Eco-Challenge will be broadcast on USA Network.

More information is available online at /outside/news/headlines/www.ecochallenge.com