For further information contact:

  Polar Adventures Ltd
  18 Neville Road
  Kingston
  Surrey
  KT1 3QX
  UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 8549 1457
Fax: +44 (0)20 8241 7914
Eml: info@polarrace.com

The Ultimate Challenge

The Polar Race is inspired and organised by a team led by two of the best British adventurers: Jock Wishart and David Hempleman-Adams. In 1996 they organised the "expedition with a difference" when they successfully took ten novices selected from 500 applicants on the first ever televised trek to the Magnetic North Pole - "The Ultimate Challenge". Six years later, the two men joined forces again to recreate their historic trek, but this time as a race!

Jock Wishart

David Hempleman-Adams

2003 saw the first ever race in these extreme conditions. It was a huge success. Following expert tuition from Jock, David and fellow race organisers, all nine competitors completed the course, with the winning team being the first to get their names on the unique "Blue Ice Trophy" specially commissioned by Wedgwood for the Polar Race.

Polar Race 2005 was another great success and full of firsts: the first Italian woman to walk to any northern pole, the first Australian woman to walk to any northern pole, and the first South Africans to walk to the Magnetic North Pole.

It's true, the Polar Race really does allow people to achieve their dreams.

The gruelling race starts from Resolute Bay in the former North West Territories of Canada. It takes the contestants some 350 miles, by ski or foot, across some of the most desolate terrain in the world to the 1996 certified position of the Magnetic North Pole.

Just to survive in this terrain takes courage, but to race requires a willingness and determination beyond the norm.

The Polar Race is for those few hardy men and women who want to test their endurance to the very limit.

Those competitors who finish the course can proudly claim they have completed...

"...probably the world's toughest race."