New Race Across the World contestants and start date revealed

BBC One has released a first look image of the new contestants taking part in the new series of Race Across The World, which starts 10 April.

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Having honed their survival strategies over millennia, mammals have evolved to be masters of the cold. In this episode, we journey across the globe, exploring a frozen world, from icy seas to snow-capped mountains and meet the unique mammals that call them home. For most, the cold is a killer. But for mammals, with their unique physical traits like warm thick fur and rich nourishing milk, and remarkable behaviours like hibernation, conquering the cold is possible.

We begin our journey on the Arctic islands of Svalbard, where polar bears, synonymous with this cold archipelago, dominate this remote frozen world. But as their world warms, and the frozen seas that are their hunting grounds disappear, they are being forced to find new sources of food. For the first time, we follow a polar bear hunting on land as it heads high up into the mountains in a rarely seen long-distance pursuit of Svalbard’s reindeer.

Mammals have been forced to adapt to the cold for millions of years. Whereas other species avoided the series of thick ice sheets that once covered a quarter of all land, mammals were able to survive the freezing conditions, and by adapting their behaviour, many are now completely at home in these inhospitable lands.

One land that has little changed since the last ice age is the tundra of northern Alaska. In this remote, hostile landscape, a mythical and rarely seen mammal endures: the wolverine. They rely completely on snow to survive, providing them meat from animals that have succumbed to the cold and dens in which to raise their young. Whilst other animals either flee or hibernate to avoid the coldest time of year, they stay active all winter, traversing the vast landscape in search of food. This privileged view reveals a surprisingly caring side of a highly elusive animal.

Knowledge can play a huge role in surviving the cold. Rather than roaming huge distances, some smart mammals will return annually to places they know will provide them with food. In Canada’s northern Yukon, a unique community of bears has been passing knowledge down the generations of a special ice-free river. While most bears are already hibernating, this late flowing river allows chum salmon to spawn into the winter months, giving the bears an opportunity for one last feast before hibernation that they simply cannot resist.

Mammals’ ability to hibernate is a clever way to avoid winter, and deep underground in an abandoned mine, little and big brown bats are well into their hibernation. But not all stay asleep. One sneaky bat wakes in order to mate while the rest of the colony sleeps on.

Bringing newborns into a world of snow and ice has many challenges, but mammals’ unique ability to produce fat-rich milk allows harp seal mothers to have one of the shortest weening periods of all. In just 12 days, off the coast of Greenland, they race to fatten their pups to independence as the icy nursery melts around them.

Far above sea level, the remote Kluane Mountains of North America support the largest ice field outside the poles. In this rugged landscape of rock and ice, pika, a relative of the rabbit, patiently wait for summer. Having stayed awake all winter, surviving on food they collected last year, once summer does return, they will all have just a few weeks to harvest nearly a year’s worth of food before the winter lockdown begins again. But storing your hard-earnt supplies all in one place comes at a risk if you can’t trust your neighbour.

Averaging 4,000 meters above sea level, the thin air of the lofty mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China struggle to retain much heat at all. As a result, life here always feels cold. Snow leopards are the top predator and have lived here for millions of years, but recently their lives have become linked with humans and the domestic yak they herd. It’s too good an opportunity to ignore. But through a community initiative, they have found a way to live alongside each other, even when the yak are taken by the leopards.

Back at sea level, on the shores of Canada’s Hudson Bay, for mammals specialised for life in the cold, a warming world is now the biggest challenge. Here, arctic fox and polar bears wait together by open water where there should be ice. For arctic foxes living here, as food ashore runs out, they would normally move and follow the polar bears onto the ice in order to scavenge off the bears’ kills. But as the winter freeze, and arrival of the ice is delayed, the bears cannot hunt, and life becomes more and more desperate. This has led to the foxes resorting to cannibalism, desperately fighting with each other to feed on the unfortunate foxes that have succumbed to hunger.

Race Across the World, the BBC’s epic, hugely successful and much-loved BAFTA-award winning series returns to BBC One and BBC iPlayer for its hotly anticipated new season on Wednesday nights.

Eastern Asia is this year’s route, and the five intrepid duos will battle it out in a breath-taking 15,000 kilometres race across several countries. From northernmost Japan, they will cross six seas and eight borders, skirting the path of the volcanic ring of fire – the most geologically unstable region on the planet to reach the finish line in Lombok, an idyllic Indonesian island paradise.

The teams include: two mother and daughter duos, Brydie and Sharon and Eugenie and Isabel; best friends, Alfie and Owen; married couple, Stephen and Viv and brother and sister, Betty and James.

Leaving behind their smartphones, internet access and bank cards, the race will test the five teams like never before, pushing them to both their physical and emotional limits. But with their feet on the ground, and their eyes wide open the rewards will be great, and the memories will be everlasting. Only one team can emerge victorious as they all vie to be first and claim the cash prize of £20,000.

Race Across the World, is a 8×60′ series produced by Studio Lambert for BBC One and BBC iPlayer. The series was commissioned by Catherine Catton, Head of Commissioning, Factual Entertainment and Events and the BBC Commissioning Editor is Michael Jochnowitz. Tim Harcourt, Lucy Shepherd and Stephen Day are the Executive Producers for Studio Lambert, alongside Maria Kennedy, Line Producer, Kezia Walker, Production Executive, Charlotte Woolley, Series Editor and Charlotte Jacobs, Series Producer, also for Studio Lambert.

Watch Race Across the World on BBC iPlayer with new episodes on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from Wednesday 10 April at 9pm.