Burns and Abdelnoor withdraw from TAR, as Karrera and Reiter extend lead
Karrera leads Reiter on the tough stage 4
Once again, cooler and overcast conditions prevailed, as the start of stage 4 of the GORE-TEX® TRANSALPINE-RUN got underway in the small alpine village of Neukirchen. Even the tough running conditions of stage 3 could not lower the morale of the competitors…
Plan B Event Release
As teams made their way to the start line excited and ready to tackle the Birnlücke, the highest peak of the race, lead runners continued to showcase their dominance at this year’s event as Iker Karrera and Philipp Reiter of Team Salomon International put in another solid performance to outclass their nearest rivals once again.
Maintaining a good lead from early on in the stage, Karrera and Reiter crossed the finish line in Prettau am Ahrntal in a time of 4:16.45.
Earlier in the morning Reiter had commented “I know the stage pretty well but with a lot of flat running, anything can happen.” The local knowledge seemed to pay off however as they never put a stride wrong and won comfortably over second place finishers Florian Holzinger and Rolfes Volkmar of Team Gore Running Wear, finishing in 4:28.49, a further 12 minutes back.
Today’s stage was also not short of its fair share of drama. The biggest shock came in the Masters category as overall leaders, Marcus Kröll and former mountain running world champion Helmut Schiessel from Team Salomon Austria Germany, were forced to with draw due to injury, mere minutes after the start.
It never ended there, as Billy Burns from Team Inov-8 began suffering knee troubles early on in the stage, leaving fellow team mate Ben Abdelnoor to finish the stage alone, meaning the team will now have to exit the GORE-TEX® TRANSALPINE-RUN.
Another unfortunate withdrawal was that of Team Sexton Salomon, Elisabeth Egarter and Petra Theiner, changing the landscape of the Women’s category on stage 4 of the GORE-TEX® TRANSALPINE-RUN. Overall leaders Gitti Schiebel and Ildikó Wermescher of Team Mountain Heroes, maintained their first place, crossing the finish line in Prettau in 5:26.55.
Second place finishers, Jutta Buschmann and Kristin Berglund of Team SCLT Breitenbach finished only a few minutes back in a time of 5:28.20, taking over the second position overall.
Stage 5 Snapshot – Prettau in Ahrntal to Sand in Taufers
Having already crossed the border into Italy stage 5 takes the runners a step closer to the Dolomoites. At only 32.8 kilometers, stage 5 is the shortest of the 8 stages but competitors will not be able to take their foot off the gas just yet, as the climbing continues with almost 2000m of altitude difference across the route.
On their way to the heart of the Tieserfernegruppe, runners will get to enjoy the high alpine terrain with views across the Zillertaler Alps. After a brief descent to Durra Alm, competitors will then traverse the Reintal, finishing with a scramble along the Reinbach waterfalls before Sand in Taufers.
DID YOU KNOW: When the GORE-TEX® TRANSALPINE-RUN passes through Prettau, the local population doubles!
Full stage 4 results are here with stage four images here.
