2019 Trail World Championships: Latest news!

The International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) and the International Trail Running Association (ITRA) are proud to present the World Trail Championships, organized by the Trilhos Dos Abrutes taking place in Portugal in Miranda do Corvo – Coimbra Saturday, 8th of June 2019. 

The history of the Championships 

The number of participants in the Championships of the World 2019 bears witness to the rapid growth of trail-running worldwide. In 2007, in Houston (USA), 12 delegations were represented by 33 athletes, 16 women and 17 men. Today, there are 411 athletes participating (186 women and 233 men, representing 53 delegations. By comparison with previous championships, the increase in the average ITRA Performance Index (PI) for the top 50 athletes (male and female). It is 648 for women and 752 for men.  It reflects an enormous enthusiasm for the young discipline of trail-running - even if the respective levels of the different delegations remain somewhat disparate.

Leading the top 10 men on the basis of the ITRA Performance Index is the British runner, Jonathan Albon (photo, ITRA PI score 912), then just after him the last year’s Champion: Louis Alberto Fernando (ITRA PI score 910) from Spain, close behind the French runner Nicolas Martin (ITRA PI score 905) followed by two Italian athletes Marco De Gasperi (ITRA PI score 903) and Francesco Puppi (ITRA PI score 893). Also in the top 10 are two Spaniards, Cristofer Clemente (ITRA PI score 888) and Zaid Ait Malek (ITRA PI score 886), with the next two French runners Aurelien Dunand-Pallaz (ITRA PI score 884), Ludovic Pommeret (ITRA PI score 883) and Borja Fernandez from Spain with the same result (ITRA PI score 883). Finally, French runner, Julien Rancon (ITRA PI score 880) will also be at the starting line for this Trail World Championships. Competition is likely to be quite fierce between some of the outsiders too, notably André Jonsson from Sweden (ITRA PI score 878), Mario Mendoza from USA (photo, ITRA PI score 876), Dimitrios Theodorakakos (ITRA PI score 875) from Greece and Nick Elson (ITRA PI score 859) from Canada.

Competition amongst the top 10 women, on the basis of the ITRA Performance Index, promises to be exciting and full of surprises. At the top of the group is the New Zealand runner Ruth Croft (photo, ITRA PI score 791, photo) followed by the Spanish Azara Gracia (ITRA PI score 785) and Ragna Debats (ITRA PI score 783) from Netherlands. Just behind them in the top 10 is French runner, Adeline Roche (ITRA PI score 766), two runners from Spain Sheila Aviles (ITRA PI score 764) and Gemma Arenas(ITRA PI score 759). Then Kelly Wolf from United State with the equal number of ITRA PI scores – 759. Completing the top 10 are Silvia Rampazzo (ITRA PI score 758) from Italy, Daniella Moreno (ITRA PI score 758) from United State. Meanwhile several outsiders may well surprise the favorites; these include  Denisa Dragomir (ITRA PI score 750), Magdalena Łączak(ITRA PI score 739), and Sunmaya Budha (ITRA PI score 725) from Romania, Poland and Nepal respectively.

Miranda do Corvo is a historic town in Portugal. The region has an extensive historical heritage: Monastery of Nossa Senhora da Assunção, Sanctuary of Senhor da Serra, Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora da Piedade and the mythical schist village schist, Gondramaz. The maximum altitude is 1.000m. Coimbra is the fourthlargest urban centre in Portugal (after Lisbon, Porto, Braga). Among the many archaeological structures dating back to the Roman era, are its well-preserved aqueduct and cryptoporticus. Its historical buildings were classified as a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2013. 

The athletes taking part in the Trail World Championships will have to tackle a distance of 44 km and 2,120m of ascent 1,970m of descent. The race will start from Miranda do Corvo at 9.00 am on Saturday, June 08. 

The World Championships course profile:

 

To allow the greatest possible number of athletes to take part, the organizers offer the opportunity to run the same race of the Trail World Championships on Sunday, 9 June at 9:00am.

• Thursday 6 June at 6:00pm: opening ceremony at Praça da Canção, Coimbra
• Friday 7 June at 10:00am: technical meeting at Vila Galé
• Friday 7 June at 11:30pm: Press conference at Dona Inés Hotel
• Saturday 8 June at 9:00am: departure of the Trail World Championships at Miranda do Corvo
• Saturday 8 June at 7:00pm: closing ceremony.
• Sunday 9 June at 9:00am : departure of the open race at Miranda do Corvo. 

Several of the favorite athletes have been obliged to pull out of the race just a few days before the competition because of injury or for other, personal reasons. Three American runners, Tim Tollefson (ITRA PI score 903), Zach Miller (ITRA PI score 897) and Anthony Costales (ITRA PI score 897). On the women's side, the British Holly Page will not start the race due to an injury.