TORX Trail Running Races 6-15 September 2024

TOR330 Tor des Geants® - TOR450 Tor des Glaciers - TOR130 Tot Dret - TOR100 Cervino Monte Bianco - TOR30 Passage au Malatrà

eXtraordinary

eXtreme

eXperience

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A Spanish on the lead of Tor des Glaciers

Almost 24 hours have passed since the much cheered start from Courmayeur of Tor des Glaciers – the new 450-km race created by VDA Trailers to celebrate Tor des Géants®’s tenth anniversary – and the 98 runners (two of them did not start) immediately gave life to a breath-taking competition. At 5 p.m. the first athlete, 43-year-old Spanish Javier Puit, reached and passed Rifugio Benevolo, 2287m and 98 km from the start, after 8.000m of elevation gain. Heading now eastwards, towards refuges Savoia and Vittorio Emanuele, he will be welcomed by the night under the protection of Gran Paradiso, close to its glacier.

Not too behind him is Luca Papi, Italian from Varese, 38 years old, who works in France, in Disneyland. Papi this year won Gran Canaria 264 km in 50 hours, slept a few hours and, as he was already in the Spanish islands, also ran Gran Canaria 128 km in 27 hours.

Third in this fast-changing ranking is Masahiro Ono from Japan, accredited to be one of the possible winners, as he ran four editions of Tor des Géants® with three top ten positions – close to the podium – and one top twenty.

Four women in the race: Marina Plavan, five TOR behind her, is leading, followed by Ligia Madrigal from Costa Rica, Anouk Baars from South Africa and the other Italian, Ita Emanuela Marzotto.

Only one runner withdrew from the race, Fabio Menni who, at km 70, had to surrender to a heel inflammation. Menni stopped, but his sportive spirit did not. He decided that he will help runners behind him who will need it in the next, long days.

Everything is temporary and variable, as variable is the weather that will be company of ultrarunners in the glaciers, who in the first day set foot on snow but were also kissed by the sun. An immense physical fatigue for them, because of the distance, the ascents, the sudden changes of temperature, but also a mental fatigue, because of the long and lonely moments, for the attention required by hard passes and for the effort to find the path by themselves or, rather, with the help of GPS. After all, Alte Vie 3 and 4 along which Tor des Glaciers is set were called the “forgotten paths”.

Everything is ready for TOR X celebration

The wait is over for the tenth edition of the main race of this event, increasingly rich, Tor des Géants®. At noon tomorrow, in Viale Monte Bianco, almost one thousand athletes will leave for an astonishing journey along Aosta Valley Alte Vie 1 and 2. Who will succeed to Franco Collé on the Giants’ throne?

Updated: Sat, 07/09/2019 - 00:00