Discovery Communications Inc. and Southern Traverse Ltd, announce that the central European country of Switzerland will play host to the inaugural Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure Race in September.

Set to be the Worlds supreme adventure competition of the year, the Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure Race will take place in Switzerland's remote alpine areas, traversing breathtaking high peaks, glaciers and mountainous terrain. Disciplines include rafting, fixed ropes, rappelling and mountain biking along with glacier and mountain trekking.

Race dates are set for the first week in September, 2001 with race registration starting on August the 31st . Actual race start will be the 3rd of September with an expected finish for the leading teams on the 7th of September.

Southern Traverse directors Geoff Hunt and Pascale Lorre say Switzerland is the ideal country to host the first ever Discovery Channel World Championship.

" We were overwhelmed by Switzerland's beauty when we visited earlier this year and the extremes of the mountainous environment will ensure that the Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure race is immensely challenging to the best racers in the world," says Pascale Lorre.

Discovery Channel will film the World Championship for a four-hour television mini-series, to be exclusively broadcast to the network's global audience in early 2002. Discovery Channel is currently broadcast in 152 countries around the world.

50 international teams, representing some of the worlds most enduring and successful athletes will take part in the Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure Race. Registrations opened on the 21 February and already there are over seven countries represented in the field line up including USA, Canada, France, Finland, Holland, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand.

The Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure Race is the first bona fide adventure championship event to be held and is supported by the AR World series, an alliance of 7 international adventure races that serve as qualifiers for the event .

These races are the Beast of the East-USA, The Appalachian Extreme-USA, Adrenalin Rush-UK and Ireland, Raid the North-Canada, Hi Tec Adventure Quest - South Africa, Southern Traverse-New Zealand and Expedicao Mata Atlantica-Brazil.

Winners of these events will receive guaranteed entry into the Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure Race and Southern Traverse Director Geoff Hunt says it's time for adventurers to step up to a new level of competition.

This will be an event where the top teams can truly rival each other in a race specifically designed to challenge them,"says Hunt," We've seen in the Southern Traverse over the last two years the emergence of faster, semi professional teams who are significantly ahead of the bulk of the field and these teams are now signing up for the championship".

Discovery Channel is one of the world's largest cable television networks, serving more than 185 million subscribers in 152 countries across the globe with the finest in informative entertainment. Constantly redefining the boundaries of real-world entertainment with ground breaking expeditions, global programming events and innovative storytelling from the world's most talented filmmakers, the Discovery Channel presents the highest quality programming spanning science and technology, nature, history, human adventure and world culture genres.

Southern Traverse Ltd. is a premier international Sport Event Management company. Southern Traverse Ltd. operates and manages elite events around the world, including the Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure Race, the AR World Series and New Zealand's icon adventure race, the Southern Traverse.

For more information email Southern Traverse at traverse@queenstown.co.nz or go to the Southern Traverse website