Summer season is starting off in full swing with great ultras popping up all over the place. The Lake Annecy Outdoor Festival had a whole raft of runs and water events with four ultra distances at the core.
Ultra-Race
This 116km race with a tasty 7360m of vertical gain had 976 runners at the start line and 317 of them made it to the end, which is a DNF rate of 32.48% and attests to the difficulty of the course. There were only 40 women at the start line, of whom 28 finished giving them a better DNF rate overall.
Francesco Cucco (IT) and Mimmi Kotka (Sweden) won decisive victories for the 2nd edition of the race. A big congratulation to Mimmi because not only did she take the women’s title, she took third place overall.
Francesco Cucco. Photo credit: David-Gonthier.
MaXi-Race
This race was a shorter 85km but still boasted an impressive 5140m of vertical gain. There was a strong win for Germain Grangier (FR), who ran most of the race in 3rd position, but took his opportunity on the very final descent and passed the two men in front to win. Wily tactics!
Germain then stayed at the finish line to greet his girlfriend, American Katie Schide, who won the women’s race. We love a love story.
Germain Grangier. Photo credit: Cyrille Quintard.
The XL Race, around the lake in two days
Day 1: 42.6km, 2500m vertical gain – Day 2: 42.1km, 2650m vertical gain
There were 368 runners for this race and over 90 per cent made it to the finish. Of all those runners there was only one wearing a red bow tie though and that was Swiss runner Diego Pazos who won it.
He crossed the finish line carrying his 6-month old baby, who was also wearing a red bow tie. Like father, like son. For the women: Elodie Tercier came in first with Armelle Magat-Saunier taking the second.
The XXL Race, two days for an Ultra
Day 1: 73.7km – Day 2: 42.1km
This was the smallest of the races as just 86 stared including 11 women. It was won by
Sacha Devillaz (FR) in 13:29 in front of Spaniard David Calero Rodriguez. For the women it was Carole Bouteille followed by Laurie Atzen.
For detailed event info go here.
