Gaoligong By UTMB® : a showdown on the 3 races
The first edition of Gaoligong By UTMB®
came to the end at 14:00 on Sunday the 11th of March. The race finish,
historic South Silk Road town of Heshun, was packed with the locals and
tourists eager to get a glimpse of Chinese and foreign athletes who had
just run for hours and hours across the valleys and peaks of the
Gaoligong Mountains. The Franco-Chinese organizing team managed to
create and execute a ground-breaking, sell-out event in an area of China
which, despite being stunningly beautiful, is yet to be known outside
the country. The Chinese are the best at creating events which impress
with scale and power, and Gaoligong By UTMB® was no exception. 1850 runners took part and 25 countries were represented.
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In the 55km (THT) : the promised battle
The
race promised a battle between the top Chinese and Western runners, and
it delivered. In the shortest, 55km THT (Tea and Horse Trail) division,
China's Li Yungui defeated USA's Jason Schlarb, the winner of some of the world's top ultra-events, and 4th place finisher at UTMB®.
"At the end, I saw that the American was nowhere near, so I slowed down
to a comfortable pace" said Li, tongue-in-cheek, commenting on his
winning time of 5 hours 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Schlarb was more than
18 minutes behind. Another Chinese runner, Nuerkalide Aman, finished
third, just over a minute behind the American.
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THT also served up perhaps the best performance of the event - 19-year-old Nepali mountain running pro, Sunmaya Budha,
destroyed the field, coming sixth overall, in 5 hours 44 minutes and 49
seconds, one hour and twenty minutes ahead of the second-placed elite
runner Meredith Edwards (USA) and China's Fan Changpin. Truly remarkably,
Sunmaya, who trains full-time at altitude in the foothills of the
Himalaya, was also ahead of several elite male runners.
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In the 125km (RCE) : the young guns went full out
Two young runners of the Columbia team - Ruy Ueda from Japan and China's Shen Jiasheng,
went full out, but the Chinese ultra pro who lives and trains at
altitude in Yunnan Province, pulled away from his Japanese rival in the
second part of the race and came out a winner by over an hour in 13hours
36 minutes. Spain's Daniel Perez Fernandez was third, almost two-and-a-half hours behind Shen.
Two Chinese runners, Han An (19:58:46) and Qian Peng (20:46:34) went one and two in the female division of RCE, with Hong Kong's elite runner Samantha Chan
just seven minutes behind Qian, having battled through stomach cramps
late in the race, which cost her the second position, and then almost
catching Qian on the final stretch.
In the 160km (MGU) : the experimented runners were rewarded
The main distance was billed as the showdown between Qi Min of China and Lithuanian UTWT champion Gediminas Grinius,
but the high attrition rate amongst elite athletes put Qi out of action
early - he retired before the 70km mark for medical reasons, while in
the lead. Gediminas subsequently won in 19:58:46.
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Other elites also suffered - UK's Daniel Lawson, last year's winner, was only able to finish 5th, and Michael Wardian of the USA, former world silver medallist at 100km road, pulled out with digestion issues. Two Chinese, a local hero Luo Canhua and Qin Yanzhong,
took second (20h 46min 34sec) and third (23h 57min 18sec) respectively
behind the highly experienced Gediminas, who, after the race, said that
Gaoligong By UTMB® felt harder than UTMB® Mont-Blanc!
In the female division, American double UTMB® champion Krissy Moehl (27:19:38) beat Japan's last year's UTMB® 4th place finisher Kaori Niwa (29:26:49), with China's Gu Haiyan in third (31:21:27).
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Gaoligong By UTMB®
content - photos and runners' accounts of their experiences are now
flooding the Chinese running social media - the verdict is that the
event delivered, on all counts, and those who did not get a place in the
race this year are making sure they do so in 2019.
Bericht von Infocimes
