UTMB 2016 - Summary of a crazy week
An image is worth than thousand words, relive all the best moments of 2016 edition in a video.
PTL - This extreme endurance race
A week worth of a very nice weather began on monday morning with the start of the PTL race ("La Petite Trotte à Léon"). This extreme race of 290km and 26500m D+ takes place in many high mountains passes, crossing virgin landscapes. This very technical contest in teams of 2 or 3 (a rigorous selection process of the participants' dossiers is done) is characterised by a complete autonomy. Victory went to the Swiss team named Abrico Team which ended the course almost one day earlier than the estimation and arrived on friday night, between the UTMB start and the CCC arrival.
TDS - OCC - CCC - A summary of the races
The week continued with the beggining of the TDS (119km and 7250m D+) on wednesday and the victory of the catalan Pau Capell who confirmed his good season and his recent performances on the UTWT. Regarding the women ranking, the victory is for the local Delphine Avenier.
Little sisters of the queen race, the OCC (55km and 3500m D+) brought together more than 1500 runners at Orsières start in Switzerland whereas the CCC (101km and 6100m D+) reached nearly 1800 runners at Courmayeur in Italy.
Xavier Thévenard confirms his supremacy on the UTMB races reaching the first place on the OCC ahead the moroccan Rachid El Morabity (2nd place) and the french Thibaut Baronian (3rd place). After 5 participations and victories on the CCC in 2010, the UTMB in 2013 and 2015 and on the TDS in 2014, Xavier Thévenard remains undefeated and is the only one to win all the UTMB races.
Regarding the CCC, the swedish Mimmi Kotka reached the first place for the women (pictured below) and the french Michel Lanne preempted the japanese Ruy Ueda for the men side. We will meet again the principal competitors during the World Championships at the end of october where Sweden announced its top runners in the women team with Mimmi Kotka, Emelie Forsberg - winner of a round on the Skyrunning tour this weekend in Kima - and Ida Nilsson who won the Transvulcania and the Marathon du Mont-Blanc a bit earlier in the season.
UTMB - A consecration for Ludovic Pommeret and Caroline Chaverot
On the queen race of UTMB (170km and 10000m D+), more than 2500 runners were on the start line to finish the Mont-Blanc loop in less than 47 hours. The race had been intense from the beggining until the finish line. Zach Miller started to run very fast during the 2/3 parts of the race before loosing his first position at Trient by the french competitor. Caroline Chaverot led the race from the begining with a maximum of 30 min gap and a minimum of 4 min with her swiss competitor Andréa Huser in Trient.
Ludovic Pommeret, after being 50th at Chapieux (km 50), found the necessary resources to catch up his delay and reached the first place in 22 hours ahead the lithuanian Gediminas Grinius and the american Tim Tollefson. Caroline Chaverot won for the first time this huge race and got ahead her swiss compatriot Andréa Huser following by the spanish Uxue Fraile Azpeitia. It is a french victory again on the queen race after the couple Xavier Thévenard and Nathalie Mauclair in 2015 and a first time for the Hoka team.
After several attempts on the big tour, this is a consecration for these two french runners. A season full of emotion and victories should lead them to the World Championships in Portugal where the two competitors should play an important role in team as in individual.
The week ended by the traditional closing ceremony and buffet, on the Triangle de l'Amitié place, where volunteers, runners, accompagniers and others met eachother around a tartiflette and an open-air concert. Warm atmosphere guaranteed !
