It was the day of falling records in Zinal, Switzerland for round 5 of the World Mountain Running World Cup and it was Kilian Jornet Burgada (Esp) who arrived home first breaking the record from Jonathan Wyatt (Nzl) by clocking an incredible 2h25.35 for the 31km mountainous course. Not long after the women's record was also smashed when Maude Mathys (Sui) with a dominating start to finish run surprised all with her powerful performance taking 5 minutes from the record held by Anna Pichrtova (Cze) since 2008
The World Mountain Running Association World Cup comes to a peak point of the season with the iconic Sierre-Zinal in Switzerland.
This year the Swiss race has assembled the best ever elite field in mountain running: something impossible to miss for lovers of offroad running. With such a field, organizers think that Jonathan Wyatt’s race record of 2h29.12 from 2003 could be really in danger. Legendary six times Sierre-Zinal winner Kilian Jornet Burgada (Esp) will be the favourite but he is up against ultrarunner Jim Walmsley (Usa) who clocked last May the new World Record along 50miles. Jim has good history in the shorter distance running so expect him to push Jornet hard even if it's Jim's first time racing it.
Henri Aimonod (Ita) is the 2019 winner of PizTriVertiKal in 34.50 with one of the smartest races ever. In only the final 15meters he was able to overtake Filimon Abraham (Eri) who lead the race till that point. The Italian was helped by an amazing crowd who supported and cheered him all over the course. Abraham started fast and he dueled with European champ Jacob Adkin (Gbr) . Abraham at the end was second in 35.00 while Adkin clocked in 35.27 to secure third place. Fourth place went to Patrick Facchini (Ita) in 35.57 as second italian while Timothy Kirui (Ken) completed the top 5 in 36.31.
A great classic of mountain running and an historic event that celebrates this year the 56th edition. Over the weekend in the Orobie Alps of Brescia the combined Piz Tri Vertikal & FlettaTRAIL is staged, two WMRA affiliated international races. Held in Malonno, the area that has the title of “City of Mountain Running" in its municipal statement.
It is less than a month until the start of the 14th International U18 Mountain Running Cup to take place on 24 August in Susa. Susa returns to host an international mountain running event once again following on after the World Masters event that was held there in 2016 in this discipline.
It is an important international event for the youth (U18) category and this year the mountain race returns to its origins, in the place where it was born 14 years ago. In 2006 the WMRA celebrated the first edition of this international competition dedicated to young athletes, giving formal international recognition to an event that since 2003 Athletics Susa has been organised in memory of Marco Germanetto. Marco had for several times represented Italy in the junior category for mountain and road races.
An outstanding race from Andrew Douglas (SCO) and Sarah McCormack (IRL) in Wales saw them take the win during round 4 of the WMRA World Cup “Snowdon International Mountain Race” hosted in Llamberis (Wales). Full results and Race Report by Alberto Stretti / Jonathan Wyatt.
