Europe's best head to Canazei
An impressive line-up of Europe’s strongest skyrunners will battle for the third European Championship title in Canazei in the Italian Dolomites on July 17-19 in the Vertical Kilometer® and the SkyRace®. Top names include three world champions.
Full event press release:
Two are in the team representing Spain:Kilian Jornet (current skyrunning world champion) and Agustí Roc (three times world champion) along with Jessed Hernandez, Raúl Garcia , Tofol Castanyer, and many others.
The third world champion competing is Angela Mudge heading the British team which includes Ricky Lightfoot, World Series winner in Zegama, Spain, Tom Owens; Andy Symonds and Rob Hope.
Italy boasts a heavy-duty squad with Antonella Confortola, last year’s winner in both the Vertical Kilometer® and SkyRace®. Confortola is a nordic ski bronze medalist and Mountain Running world champion. Also on the team, Emanuela Brizio, the current Skyrunner® World Series leader with four outright wins to her name. Fulvio Dapit and Paolo Larger (ranked respectively 2nd and 3rd in the World Series) are both past SkyRace® winners here and among others, the team includes Manfred Reighegger, last year’s Vertical Kilometer® winner at the SkyGames® , the first time this demanding new ISF certified course was run.
Antonella Confortola
The ISF country members represented with teams include Andorra, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal Russia, Spain and Switzerland.
Nearly 700 athletes have entered the events. The The Dolomites Vertical Kilometer® and SkyRace® are open to individual athletes and national teams but only those belonging to ISF national member federations or associations will be ranked in the European Skyrunning Championship. Men’s and women’s individual titles will be assigned in each of the two disciplines while national team titles will be based on the combined results.
The European Championship schedule:
Vertical Kilometer®, Friday, July 17
Alba di Canazei, 1,485m Crepa Neigra, 2,485m
One thousand vertical metres over 2.1 km, the course travels along the Crepa Neigra trail – some stretches with a 50% incline, or more. The world record, established by Manfred Reichegger on this course last year, stands at 33’59”.
Dolomites SkyRace® Sunday, July 19
Canazei, Passo Pordoi, Piz Boè 3,152m.
This spectacular race, embodies the skyrunning concept to perfection: the quickest way from a town to the summit of a mountain and back – artificial means excluded! The men’s record on this course stands at 2h04’53” and the women’s at 2h30’17” – amazing accomplishments that would be hard to beat even with cars and lifts!
The course is 22 km long with over 1,750m vertical climb. From Canazei, 1,450m, to the Piz Boè, 3,152m, the course features some very steep climbs and the descent, through even steeper gorges, finishes at the starting point in the centre of town.
