Land Rover G4 Challenge heads to Mongolia

The finals of Land Rover's ultimate global adventure, the Land Rover G4 Challenge, will take place next year in the most sparsely populated independent country on the planet - Mongolia. A blend of terrain offering arid steppes, mountains and the extreme climate of one of the world's largest deserts, the Gobi, makes Mongolia a natural stage for Land Rover's G4 Challenge.

The Challenge's programme kicked off in September last year when the competition was announced at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Since then the reconnaissance teams have been exploring the toughest terrain in Asia to find a suitably demanding environment to stage the culmination of the competition in 2009.

Challenge manager Ed Tilston said: "We are very excited to confirm Mongolia as the main location for the finals of the Land Rover G4 Challenge in 2009. Our team on the ground has been working to find routes that will push our vehicles and the competitors to their limits. Mongolia is a spectacular country which will enable us to create a truly extraordinary finals event in 2009. We are also investigating the possibility of extending the Challenge into another area offering different extremes."

The 18 national teams (each comprising a man and a woman) will be pushed to their limits in a thrilling competition involving off-road driving and sports such as kayaking, mountain biking and climbing.

The 2008/09 Land Rover G4 Challenge programme is run in support of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. This partnership aims to generate in excess of £1 million over the course of the next two challenges. The winning team will receive a Land Rover to donate to their national society.

As part of this partnership, a donation has been offered to the Mongolian Red Cross to support their social care projects. These projects aim to help the many vulnerable families in Mongolia and provide them with home care, referral services and a move to inclusion in the community. As a result of this, it is estimated that over 10,000 people will be reached.

Choijilsuren Ariuntungalag, Social Care and Volunteer Programme manager of the Mongolian Red Cross, said: "The Land Rover G4 Challenge is providing vital funding support to help the Mongolian Red Cross Society deliver a Social Care Programme which aims to improve the quality of life of the most vulnerable families in Ulaanbaatar".

The Challenge is an environmentally sensitive and fully carbon offset event run in accordance with Land Rover's Fragile Earth Policy, a global promise to ensure that the company's actions minimise environmental damage. It will leave a lasting legacy both in the event location and in participating nations through the International Federation partnership.