World Ski Mountaineering Championships (Running)
Sunday 07 March 2010 01:04PM
Just back in Chamonix after a five day trip to Andorra for the World Ski Mountaineering Championships. What an awesome and humbling experience!
On Monday I sat out the uphill only race (there were five of us, and only four places available to each country, so we had to choose the races between us) which was cool as it looked like lots of suffering and little fun. Kilian Jornet (Spain) won a sprint finish from Dennis Bruno (Italy) and Florent Perrier (France). I’ve not watched many races before, and never really at this level, so it was impressive and inspiring to see just how hard the top guys were pushing themselves – the first three looked like they were going to die for about five minutes after crossing the line! Note to self: must try harder…
Of the Brits, Ben Bardsley impressed finishing just 7 minutes behind Kilian, followed shortly after by Jon Morgan, then Ivor Ligertwood and Nick Wallis.
Wednesday was the individual up and down race, which turned out to be a thrilling race at the front, with Kilian battling it out with the swiss Florent Troillet, each one occasionally opening a gap only to be reeled back in. Florent won in the end by four seconds. Nearly as closely matched, but substantially further behind, were us Brits. We were all within sight of each other for much of the race, and Ben and I left the final “skins on” transition together, simultaneously chasing Jon and trying to drop each other. Jon stayed slightly ahead of us both, finishing 56th, closely followed by Ben in 59th and me in 61st, with just over 3 minutes separating us.
Also of note was Gaby Lees, our only female representative, in the junior women’s, who got closer to the winner of her race than any of us blokes managed in our races. Awesome.
The highlight for sure was Friday’s team race, for which I teamed up with Ben. We started in proper Scottish conditions, amazed that the organisers seemed to be going ahead with the full course. An hour later the weather cleared and we enjoyed perfect snow and clear blue skies as we endured the 2300m of up and down, split over three climbs. The final climb was particularly exciting, with a steep boot pack (skis on sac) up a couloir, followed by a knife-edge ridge run and then an awesome descent to the finish. Ben and I pushed hard up the couloir and along the ridge, managing to get ahead of a Norwegian team, only to have me lose a ski on the final descent and have them nip back in front of us (I was having problems with my bindings for the whole race). Overall a good result though, “only” 37% behind the best in the world, and ahead of teams from countries with fantastic and reliable skiing, and a ski mountaineering race scene such as Canada, Norway and Slovenia. Pretty chuffed but still loads to learn!
Nick and Ivor did well to finish after Ivor had a pretty major boot problem on the first descent. Even more notable was Gary Devine, former British fell running champion, who teamed up with Jon Morgan for his first ever ski mountaineering race, and his second ever ski tour! Jon found him a pink, flowery cat suit to wear so that he looked the part. Impressively he managed to finish within double the time of the winning team. “It’s not very much like fell running, is it?” was his comment on the finish line.
After all that excitement Ben and I are now properly psyched for Ski-mountaineering’s blue riband event, the four day Pierramenta, which starts on Thursday.
Some photos from Nick Wallis, Gaby Lees and Ben Bardsley compiled here.