WORLD BRIEFING / ANTARCTICA

Six ski teams set off on an international race to the South Pole, nearly a century after Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen beat Britain’s Robert Scott to it, organizers said.

The teams, which include an Olympic rower and a blind Irishman, will travel 430 nautical miles across the Antarctic ice cap. Their race is billed as the first to the pole since the Amundsen-Scott rivalry that ended with the Norwegian’s triumph in December 1911, a month before Scott reached it.

The competitors will camp out in tents and pull 154-pound sleds. Dogs are not allowed. The racers will face temperatures of 58 below zero.