What’s To A Name?

The very nature of adventure racing as a sport means that the composition of teams – that is, their team members, sponsors and team names – are very fluid.  The physically demanding nature of AR, coupled with the high costs of travel and inherent challenges of just making it to the start line of an expedition race means that even at an elite level adventure racing teams seldom field the same line-up from race to race.  Racers switch and change teams, injuries occur and sponsors come and go.  Therefore at any given race, be it a local sprint right through to an international expedition race, teams are generally formed from a community of familiar faces: a competitor in one race may be your training partner last week and your team mate next week.  I guess a standout exception to this phenomenon was team Orion Health Adventure who, for an approximately four year period fielded an identical line up of four racers.  Whilst great athletes in their own rights, I think it is fair to say it was this team cohesion that saw them go on to win many high profile races against a number of other strong teams, including the world champs in Brazil in 2008.

So, what is the point I’m trying to make I hear you ask?  Well, Rogue is just one of many team names we’ve raced under in the past.  The name first derived from a play on the word Rogaine from a 24hr race we held.  Indeed, in the four GeoQuests I’ve raced, all with a very similar (but not identical) line-up, we’ve raced under a different name.  In fact, it is usually a point of hot debate amongst the team, even to the point of us racing under the team name “Not A Bad Team Name” in 2011.  Other past tragic names include “Shady Equine” and “What’s The Point”.  At least we’ve managed to avoid some of Alan Ferris’s other colourful ideas including “One Banana, Two Banana, Three Banana, Four” and “A Hunk, A Hunk Of Burning Love”.  Mind you, he did manage to sneak “Get A Dog Up Ya” past some other poor unsuspecting team mates one time.  I guess by building the Rogue team name, hopefully we can maintain a bit of cohesion even though I’m sure racers will come and go.

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