Scott wanted to be first to reach the Pole. However he also planned to conduct research, so he took a team of scientists with him. It was an unexpected turn of events that made the expedition into a race -a situation that Scott hadn't consciously chosen. Amundsen hadn't planned to go to the South Pole; his ambition was to reach the North Pole. However, in 1909 two U.S. explorers - Robert Peary and Frederick Cook - announced that their two separate expeditions had reached the North Pole. Both claims were accepted at the time and backed by newspapers in the U.S. Today,however,neither of the explorers stories is accepted as true, because their proof of arrival was so poor and the speeds they claimed were unbelievably fast.