Action Asia has met with mixed fortunes in Taiwan, and of all the areas in which the foundation has sought to establish its adventure race format, Taiwan has offered the greatest potential and also probably the greatest difficulties.
With 35 local teams already registered to participate in this year's event, along with over 30 coming from Hong Kong, Singapore and other countries, this year's race is set to take the Action Asia Challenge Taiwan to a new level.
Michael Maddess, the driving force behind the race, is returning to Fulung, the scene of the 2003 race, where he hopes to exploit Taiwan's fabulous, but under-utilized, resources for outdoor sports.
The Action Asia Challenge is an adventure race that involves a number of outdoor disciplines ranging from running to rappelling, kayaking and mountain biking.
Aimed primarily at the so-called "weekend-warrior" set, the race provides a stiff challenge for semi-professional athletes, while also allowing for participation of those who are simply excited by competition in an outdoor environment.
In the past, Action Asia has been held in a three-person format, in which teams of three need to complete the course to place. Since the challenge held in Macao last June, the race has adopted a two-person team format.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF ACTION ASIA
According to Maddess, this has greatly enhanced interest. "Most people have one training partner who they can rely on, but when it comes to getting three people together, this can often be a problem of logistics," Maddess said. "Now registrations are completed much earlier, and our team quota for the race is usually filled very rapidly."
The two-person format will doubtless also benefit participation for local participants. In addition, the Taiwan race this year will be the first occasion on which the race map has been released prior to the race.
This violates the basic tenets of adventure racing, in which racers normally going into the race with no idea about the route and only a vague idea of the disciplines that may be involved. But Maddess emphasized that this is just an experiment.
"When we first announced that we would be revealing the route, many of our seasoned competitors e-mailed to protest," he said in a telephone interview with Taipei Times, but added that this might help less experienced competitors.
Introducing the race to people new to adventure racing has been a major goal for Maddess and the Action Asia team ever since they brought the race to Taiwan.
Local participation has been patchy, with many locals untried in sports such as kayaking and ocean swimming. Maddess's response: "There are just so many really fit people in Taiwan (referring especially to the well-established triathlon and marathon circuits), that there is really no excuse."
In the past, local participants have excelled in all but the water disciplines, and generally fallen down in the transitions, largely due to unfamiliarity with adventure racing.
But the outdoor scene in Taiwan is changing rapidly, with more and more people getting seriously involved in mountain biking, rock climbing and even boating than ever before, that Maddess's contention that Taiwan is an ideal location for such a race seems to be well founded.
"Compared to places like Hong Kong and Singapore, where one has to be really creative to make a race route that hasn't been used before, Taiwan has so much potential," Maddess said.
In 2003, the Action Asia team had thought to bring a race to southern Taiwan, but Maddess said that the previous Fulung Race had not fully showcased the potential of the area for adventure racing.
"We shall probably stick to northern Taiwan for the moment," he said, "and only move south when we need to find fresh routes."
The race was held in Sun Moon Lake in 2002, but this so far has been the only venture outside northern Taiwan.
Information about the Action Asia Challenge Taiwan 2005 can be found on www.actionasia.com and can also be obtained from Teng Shan You (
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located