Ultrarunning News from Around the Globe

In this month’s column we bring you news from the opening rounds of the Ultra Trail World Tour and the latest UTWT standings, as well as a selection of news from the blogs.

Vibram Hong Kong 100

The opening round of the 2017 Ultra Trail World Tour in Hong Kong had improved conditions with some milder temperatures and rain. Yanqiao Yan from China captured the win but a decent margin of twenty six minutes over Italian Daniel Jung. Sage Canaday was the top American in third place. Other notable finishers in this early season head to head were Didrik Hermansen 4^th, Tim Tollefson 5^th, Seth Swanson 6^th and Julien Chorier 10^th.

Nuria Picas returned to her winning ways in dominant fashion with an emphatic victory over China’s Linming Chen by some thirty five minutes and in the process besting the old course record by over forty minutes.
New Zealand athlete and Hong Kong based Marie McNaughton took third place in what appears to be her fastest time on this course.

 

 

 

Vibram Hong Kong 100

Men		Time
1	Yanqiao Yun	09:35:11
2	Daniel Jung	10:01:35
3	Sage Canaday	10:03:50

 

Women		Time
1	Nuria Picas-Albets	11:18:57
2	Linming Chen	11:53:47
3	Maria McNaughton	12:26:19

Tarawera Ultramarathon

American Jim Walmsley cruised to victory unchallenged in an incredibly fast record time of 7:23 leading from virtually the get go. Walmsley was more than forty five minutes ahead of second placed Jonas Buud who is no slouch when it comes to fast trails.

The final spot on the podium was for New Zealand’s Sam McCutcheon. Other notable finishers in this hotly contested race in New Zealand were Gediminas Grinius in 5th, Matt Flaherty 7^th and Michael Wardian 8^th.

In a similar vein the women’s race was won by leading from the front, Camille Herron beating second place Magdalena Boulet by around twenty four minutes. It was a narrow margin for third placed Cecilia Flori who was only ninety seconds behind Boulet. Fiona Hayvice who won last year in 10:34 finished sixth in 10:06 such was the step up in competition this year. Fernanda Maciel took 7^th and Sophie Grant 10^th.

Tarawera Ultramarathon 102km

Men		Time
1	Jim Walmsley	07:23:32
2	Jonas Buud	08:10:58
3	Sam McCutcheon	08:12:35

 

Women		Time
1	Camille Herron	08:56:00
2	Magdelena Boulet	09:20:13
3	Cecilia Flori	09:21:42

Transgrancanaria

Trangsrancanaria is the first UTWT race of the season in Europe with a distance of 125km and with 8,000 metres of ascent it is a serious early season challenge. The runners traverse from the north of the island to the south and the massed crowds on the beach of Maspalomas.

This year’s men’s winner was a richly deserved Pau Capell in a fast time of 13:21 beating Didrik Hermansen’s winning time from 2016 by a huge twenty minutes. Lithuanian Vaidas Zlabys placed second fourteen minutes later with Hermansen settling for third place this year.

Other top ten finishers included Diego Pazos 8^th, Andy Symonds 9^th and Timothy Olson 10^th.

The women’s race was dominated by Spain’s Azara Garcia in her first race of over 100 kilometres. A challenging last 40 kilometres where she had difficulty eating and drinking made the closing efforts more intriguing but Garcia still managed to eclipse second place Andrea Huser by over forty five minutes. In third place was Melanie Rousset less than fifteen minutes behind.

Other top ten finishers Ildiko Wermescher 5^th, Juliette Blanchette 7^th, Lisa Borzani 8^th and Manuela Vilaseca 10^th.

Transgrancanaria

Men		Time
1	Pau Capell	13:21:03
2	Vaidas Zlabys	13:35:38
3	Didrik Hermansen	13:50:06

 

Women		Time
1	Azara Garcia	16:25:20
2	Andrea Huser	17:15:45
3	Melanie Rousset	17:30:40

 

News from the blogs

Kilian Jornet

In the continuing adventure ‘Summits of My life’ Jornet recently announced he will once again go back to Everest. On his return he has a full bag of trail racing, Marathon du Mont Blanc, Hardrock and UTMB amongst others. Somewhere in all this racing he will travel to the UK to take on the famous Bob Graham Round.

http://www.kilianjornet.cat/en/blog/2017-calendar/ 

Manuela Vilaseca

Brazilian ultra runner and mountain biker, Manuela “Manu’ Vilaseca trains hard and invariably finishes top ten in some of the tougher mountain races such as UTMB and Transgrancanaria. ‘Catch me if you can’ is Manu’s catch phrase!   More regular updates on her athlete Facebook page.

http://manuvilaseca.com/site/

Andrea Huser

Find out more about Andrea Huser on her Facebook page.  Swiss athlete Huser loves the mountains. Looks like this year she will spend some time in the US in preparation for Western States at the end of June.

Francesca Canepa

Italian Francesca Canepa looks like she is heading to Croatia to compete in the 100 miles of Istria a UTWT event. Checkout her Facebook page to keep up to date.

Gediminas Grinius

Lithuanian athlete Gediminas Grinius came on the scene about two years ago at Lavaredo Ultra Trail and has continually impressed showing it was not a fluke performance. I like his mantra ‘Time is Time’ so don’t look for his blog which is not regularly updated but check out his Facebook page for updates. He is currently running in the US.

Mike Wardian

Does he really need an introduction… Mike races practically every weekend and sometimes both days or indeed in the morning and then in the evening. He is scheduled to run Western States at the end of June and then Hardrock three weeks later. Even with MW’s prodigious racing calibre that is a tall ask…. bring it on!!

http://mikewardian.com

UTWT Standings

Here is a recap on scoring for UTWT events. These are points awarded to the winner of the various category races.

Three rounds of this year’s Ultra Trail World Tour have been raced, Vibram Hong Kong 100 (Pro), Tarawera Ultramarathon (Pro) and Transgrancanaria (Series).

 

Place	Series with Bonus	Series	Pro	Challenger
1st	1300	1000	700	400
2nd	1124	865	605	346
3rd	1021	785	550	314
4th	948	729	510	292
5th	891	685	480	274

Leading the way after three races are Didrik Hermansen with 1,295 points and Azara Garcia with 1,000 points. Transgrancanaria as a Series race commands more points than the Pro races (Vibram HK and Tarawera). Critically, later on in the season Marathon des Sables and UTMB are the only two Series with Bonus races and could prove crucial to who wins the 2017 UTWT.

 

Up and coming races

Marathon des Sables – April 7th-17th

100 Miles of Istria – April 7th-9th

Patagonia Run 2017 – 145k – April 7th-8th

Madeira Island Ultra Trail – April 22^nd

Penyagolosa Trails – April 22^nd

Thames Path 100 – April 29^th – 30th

 

ULTRARUNNING NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

In this month’s column we bring you news from the third round of the Ultra Trail World Tour, the latest UTWT standings as well as a selection of news from the blogs.

Transgrancanaria

Norway’s Didrik Hermansen and France’s Caroline Chaverot improved on their 2015 second places to win the 2016 edition of this race and in the process both smashing the course records by a considerable margin.

Didrik Hermansen climbing towards Garanon aid station

Two different race tactics were employed, Hermansen running with the lead group, biding his time and then charging at just over the halfway mark, whilst Chaverot, showing supreme confidence in her ability, charged from the front and just kept increasing that lead as the miles went by.

Caroline Chaverot coming into Ayaguares 

Gediminas Grinius had a solid race beating his time from last year by thirty eight minutes and adding to his tally of UTWT points and ranking. In joint third was Catalan Pau Capell, running with Switzerlands Diego Pazos for much of the second half of the race.

In the women’s race Chaverot’s lead was nearly a whole two hours ahead of Switzerland’s Andrea Huser followed shortly by Spain’s Uxue Fraile Azpeitia.

Transgrancanaria – 125km

Men		Time
1	Didrik Hermansen	13:41:48
2	Gediminas Grinius	13:45:08
3 – tied	Pau Capell	14:11:02
3 – tied	Diego Pazos	14:11:02

 

Women		Time
1	Caroline Chaverot	15:23:40
2	Andrea Huser	17:21:43
3	Uxue Fraile-Azpeitia	17:28:05

 

News from the blogs

Nuria Picas

Nuria Picas dropped from Transgrancanaria in Artenara (33km) citing a psoas muscle injury to her left leg. It looks like Nuria will be in Soller, Mallorca in the middle of March helping Tofol Castanyer with his training camp over three intense days.  One thing is for sure the trails are fantastic in Mallorca and Soller is a really beautiful place to be based.

Nuria giving fellow Buff athlete Yeray Duran encouragement for the last 25km of TGC 

http://nuriapicas.com/home/

Caroline Chaverot

Obviously excited from her success at Transgrancanaria Caroline was very prompt in her race report, written the same day as she finished. In French, its worth translating and reading – ‘After Teror, I find that I’m way ahead of last year, since I will make all the next climb, which is beautiful at sunrise, at night.’

http://carochav.blogspot.co.uk/

Emelie Forsberg

Emelie Forsberg had a well-publicized ski accident in early February where she tore her cruciate ligament meaning that she will be out of trail running action this season. Her rehab continues with measured amounts of isometric exercises and cycling on a turbo trainer. We wish her a speedy recovery.

http://www.emelieforsberg.com/category/blog-english/

Anna Frost

Anna loves those La Palma trails – She will be back there this May

Look out for Anna Frost in the Lake District, UK when the rest of the Salomon team meet for the Salomon Advanced Week in April. Anna also has Transvulcania and Hardrock 100 on her schedule as well a trip to Bhutan in October among other things.

https://frostysfootsteps.wordpress.com/

Didrik Hermansen

Didrik’s Facebook account confirmed that he took it easy as he worked his way up the field at Transgrancanaria before taking first place on the downhill towards Ayaguares with around twenty five kilometres to go. What was not apparent was the back and forth that he and Gediminas Grinius had had leading up to this point. View www.irunfar.com postrace interview for a more in depth analysis.

Hermansen also held a contest to guess his TGC finish time. Fredrik Olmqvist guessed to within eight minutes. Given that Hermansen blew away the old course record by forty two minutes, it was a well-informed guess!

Gediminas Grinius

A thoughtful piece from Gediminas about potentially overtraining leading into Diagonal des Fous in 2015 – ‘was a disaster, which I never would like to repeat’ at Diagonal des Fous and refocusing for 2016. Grinius tells us about his race plans for 2016 starting with Vibram HK – ‘A’ race and third place, Transgrancanaria – ‘B’ race not bad as he came second,  3R (rock and roll and recreation), Lavaredo in June ‘B’ race, UTMB – obviously an ‘A’ race and Diagonal des Fous – ‘A+’ race again ‘Put all in – revenge!’  We can’t wait to see how his seasons pans out.  What’s clear is that Grinius wants to re-balance his running commitments with the rest of his life.

https://d2g2.wordpress.com/

Tim Tollefson

Tim Tollefson had a character building race at Transgrancanaria. Finishing in 101^st place in a time of 19:37:14 it was surely not the plan from the outset. Tollefson’s Facebook post shortly after the race says it all ‘It was absolutely stunningly gorgeous. Objectively if I could’ve appreciated that I would’ve been happy but since I was in so much agony I’d look up and see the view and say “oh that’s cool” and then go back to realizing how horrible this is’ and the reason ‘My quads were shot and blister ridden feet felt like hamburger meat’. Thanks for the insight Tim and massive congratulations on gutting it out for the finish.

 

UTWT standings after three races

Men		Points
1	Gediminas Grinius	402
2	Pau Capell-Gil	381
3	Jonas Budd	377

 

Women		Points
1	Silvia Trigueros-Garrote	333
2	Dong Li	319
3	Caroline Chaverot	235

 

The next event in the UTWT calendar is Marathon Des Sables in Morocco from April 10^th to 15^th.  This will be the 31^st edition of this challenging multi-stage event covering 250km.  A whole host of quality North African athletes, including several past winners will be taking it out from the front. The notable International athletes competing are: Elisabet Barnes, Erik Clavery, Laurence Klein, Meghan Arbogast, Jason Schlarb, Marco Olmo and Sondre Amdahl.

2016 TRANSGRANCANARIA RACE PREVIEW

The third race in the Ultra Trail World Tour takes place this coming weekend. Transgrancaria is a 125km traverse of the island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands from North to South.

Last’s years race saw Lituanian Gediminas Grinius and the Catalan Nuria Picas take out the wins with a new men’s course record of 14:23:27 and a second successive win at Transgrancanaria for Picas in 16:53:27. Both are returning for this year’s race

Men’s race

Here are the top ten from last year with their finish times and relative UTWT ranking. Seven return this year to race Transgrancanaria.

TGC 2015	Name	Time	UTWT Ranking 2015	TGC – 2016
1	Gediminas Grinius	14:23:27	2nd	Returning TGC 2016 – 3rd Vibram HK 2016, 1st UTMF 2015, 4th WSER 2015.
2	Didrik Hermansen	14:30:07	9th	Returning TGC 2016 – 1st Lavaredo 2015.
3	Antoine Guillon	14:39:35	1st	Returning TGC 2016 – 1st Diagonal des Fous 2015, 3rd Vibram HK 2015.
4	Sondre Amdahl	15:06:37	4th	Returning TGC 2016 – 2nd Vibram HK 2015, 4th UTMF 2015
5	Cyril Cointre	15:28:22	5th	Returning TGC 2016 – 10th Tarawera 2016, 4th Vibram HK 2015.
6	Anton Krupicka	15:29:49	89th
7	Remi Queral	15:59:11	37th
8	Freddy Thevenin	16:07:06	3rd	Returning TGC 2016 – 3rd Diagonal des Fous 2015
9	Marco Zanchi	16:25:13	29th	Returning TGC 2016 – 8th Lavaredo 2015
10	Piotr Hercog	16:30:45	21st

 

Other men’s contenders

Pau Bartolo Roca – Spain – 6^th Tarawera 2015, 9^th TNF 100 2015, 1^st CCC 2014

Jonas Budd – Sweden – 1^st Tarawera 2016, 1^st Ultra Vasan 2015

Pau Capell Gil – Spain – 4^th Vibram HK 2016, 6^th CCC 2015

Sebastien Chaigneau – France – 3rd UTMF 2013, 1^st TGC 2013, 1^st TGC 2012, 3^rd TGC 2011

Julien Chorier – France – 6^th WSER 2015, 8^th TNF 100 2015, 2^nd TGC 2014

Franco Colle – Italy – 1^st The Rut 2015, 2^nd Mont Blanc 80k 2015, 1^st Tor Des Geants 2015, 2^nd Eiger Ultra 2014

Aurelien Collet – France – 3^rd Diagonal des Fous 2014

Yeray Duran – Spain – 5^th Vibram HK 2016, 3^rd Lavaredo 2015, 4^th TGC 2014

Christophe Le Saux – France – 7^th Eiger Ultra 2015  – TGC Advanced

Arnaud Lejeune – France – 2^nd UTMF 2015, 8^th UTMB 2013, 8^th UTMB 2012

Yan Longfei – China – 2^nd Vibram HK 2016,1^st Vibram 2015, 4^th TNF 100 2015

Casey Morgan – UK – 10^th TGC 2014

Seth Swanson – USA – 4^th UTMB 2015, 2^nd WSER 2015, 2^nd WSER 2014

Tim Tollefson – USA – 2^nd CCC 2015

Javi Dominguez – Spain – 5^th Diagonal des Fous 2014, 7^th TGC 2014, 3^rd UTMB 2013

Miguel Heras – Spain

Fulvio Dapit – Italy

Stefano Trisconi – Italy

Jordi Bes Ginesta – Spain

Marco Molinari – Italy

Matt Moroz – Hong Kong

Joe Grant – USA – on start list but not running

Kim Collison – UK

 

Women’s race

Here are the top ten from last year with their finish times and relative UTWT ranking. Like the men seven return for this year to race Transgrancanaria.

TGC 2015	Name	Time	UTWT Ranking 2015	TGC – 2016
1	Nuria Picas	16:53:27	1st	Returning TGC 2016 – 3rd Tarawera 2015, 1st Diagonal des Fous 2015, 1st UTMF 2014, 2nd UTNB 2014, 1st TGC 2014, 1st TNF100 2014
2	Caroline Chaverot	17:16:48	4th	Returning TGC 2016 – 1st Lavaredo 2015, 1st Eiger Ultra 2015
3	Dong Li	18:15:55	2nd	Returning TGC 2016 – 1st Vibram HK 2016, 2nd Vibram HK 2015, 1st TNF 100 2015. 4th Mont Blanc 80k 2015.
4	Andrea Huser	18:37:53	5th	Returning TGC 2016 – 3rd Diagonal des Fous 2015, 2nd Eiger Ultra 2015, 7th Lavaredo 2015, 7th UTMB 2014
5	Manu Vilaseca	18:42:59	8th	Returning TGC 2016 – 5th Lavaredo 2015, 10th UTMB 2015, 5th UTMF 2014, 8th Lavaredo 2014
6	Ester Alves	19:11:45	23rd
7	Lucinda Sousa	19:25:46	21st	Returning TGC 2016
8	Aliza Lapierre	19:58:48	7th
9	Raquel Rivero Delgado	20:24:16	54th
10	Silvia Trigueros	20:38:18	10th	Returning TGC 2016 – 3rd Vibram HK 2016, 4th UTMB 2015, 5th UTMB 2013

 

Other Women’s contenders

Lisa Borzani – Italy – 2^nd Vibram HK 2016, 3^rd Vibram HK 2015, 10^th Laveredo 2015.

Emelie Lecomte – France – 2^nd Diagonal des Fous 2015, 7^th Eiger Ultra 2015, 5^th Transvulcania 2013.

Denise Zimmerman – Switzerland – 3^rd UTMB 2015, 6^th Lavaredo 2015, 5^th Eiger Ultra 2015, 7^th Diagonal des Fous 2014, 3^rd Eiger Ultra 2014.

Uxue Fraile-Azpeitia – Spain – 1^st UTMF 2015, 2^nd UTMB 2015, 5^th UTMB 2014, 6^th TGC 2014, 4^th Eiger Ultra 2015, 3^rd Diagonal des Fous 2014

Rory Bosio – USA – on start list but not running

 

ULTRA TRAIL DU MONT BLANC – CCC RESULTS

MILLER & CROFT DOMINATE AT CCC 

Zach Miller from America won the CCC 100km race in Chamonix this past weekend in a time of 11:53:32. Ruth Charlotte Croft totally destroyed the women’s field and all but seven of the men coming eighth overall covering this tough and demanding 6,000m ascent course from Courmayeur in Italy and all the way to Chamonix in a very impressive 12:54:53.

Second on the men’s podium was fellow American Tim Tollefson thirteen minutes behind and taking third spot was France’s Nicolas Martin a further ten minutes later.

American Magdalena Boulet took second place in a time of 14:02:47 over an hour later such was the dominating performance of Croft. Third and final place was for Spain and Laia Canes a further 42 minutes from Boulet.

Men
1	Zach Miller	11:53:32
2	Tim Tollefson	12:06:56
3	Nicolas Martin	12:16:47

 

Women
1	Ruth Charlotte Croft	12:54:53
2	Magdalena Boulet	14:02:47
3	Laia Canes	14:43:07