Reports & Results

Today’s race featured some of the most challenging terrain of the week. The teams event best embodies the spirit of ski mountaineering – with two racers competing as a team, sometimes even linked by a rope.

Course highlights

The initial climb out of Carrefour was one of the longest of the race and with the sun still low in the sky it had a very slick and icy skin tracks. The race was dominated by three ascents of Mt. Gele – a 3003 m peak – on three different aspects. The descents of Gele were characterized by well skied out, sheet ice in the couloirs.
With the fine weather continuing, many of the ascents were in the heat of the mid-day sun which had a dramatic effect on the athletes. Each ascent of Mt. Gele was successively warmer and athletes were happy to receive fluids at the Attelias Station. The descents were on predominately shaded, icy refrozen slopes with either chunder/avy debris to negotiate or smooth, steep, icy bed surface to power slide down.

Men’s race

The men covered five ascents and descents, including three boot-packs, for a total of 2290 m of climbing.
Right from the start, the Italian teams pushed hard to gap the French team. The rest of the field spread out quickly over the first two ascents and descents as they hit the first of two long boot packs.

• 25 – Nick Elson and Travis Brown (CAN)
• 26 – Teague Holmes and Jon Brown (USA)
• 30 – Peter Knight and Oliver Bibby (CAN)

» Men’s teams race full results

Women’s race

The women had a slightly shorter course, covering four ascents and descents, with three boot-packs, for a total of 2020 m of climbing.
My predictions from yesterday proved correct and after 2,5 h of racing gold went to Laetitia Roux and Axelle Mollaret of France. They were the favourites and delivered just like in 2013.

Tomorrow

Relay races are scheduled for tomorrow and both USA and Canada will line up their teams to finish off the last day of racing at these World Championships. Then it’s party time 🙂

Today saw the junior and cadet categories (all under 20) fighting it out for the world titles in the individual races at the 2015 Verbier Ski Mountaineering World Championships. North America had only one competitor lined up for the start as neither US or Canada has be able to attract the very young talent to the sport so far. But it’s happening now, although, slowly.
Oliver Bibby, from Vancouver BC, placed 20th in the junior men’s category after having problems with his equipment but overall had a great experience. This is what he had to say in a message to me:

Race went well! I was in about 17th on the first climb, then took a fall. I had binding problems on the first transition and spent couple of minutes trying to take my ski off… Skimo is the best sport… Top 2 were on a different level!

Top juniors are super fast

I am not going to discuss each of the races as I am not familiar much with the protagonists but I am going to highlight performances of the top two juniors (18-20 years old)  Oliver talked about as well:
Home boy, Remi Bonnet of Switzerland, pulled off a fantastic performance along with the second placed Davide Magnini of Italy. The two were separated by only 40 seconds at the finish and over 5 minutes ahead of everyone else.
Remi and Davide covered a course that featured only about 200m less climbing than the men’s senior course in 1h 20min, versus Kilian Jornet’s time of 1h 28min on the 1700m course the day before. The course also had only 3 ascents and 3 descents versus 4 and 4, thus, sparing some time in transitions, however, by my calculations, the two juniors would have finished in about 1h 35min to 1h 40min on the full senior course. Such efforts would have seen them finish between 20th and 35th place among men!
» Full results individual juniors & cadets
Tomorrow will bring a big battle in the team races:
Kilian Jornet will have a really well going Marc Pinsach for a teammate, thus, they should be causing great deal of trouble for the super experienced Italian, French and Swiss teams. Also, I expect at least two North American teams finish in the top 15 if not top 12, with best chances for John Gaston & Max Taam, and Jason Dorais & Tom Goth.
On the women’s side, my prediction is that the gold will go to French team – Laetitia Roux & Axelle Mollaret – with Swiss and Spanish taking the other spots on the podium. The top North American women’s team – Lindsay Plant & Jessie Young (USA) – have a realistic chance at top 7-8 if everything goes well for them!

Today’s report features some great shots and lots of details sent in by Eric. Thank you!
Yesterday, Sunday and Day 3, was effectively a rest day for the North American teams at the 2015 Skimo World Championships. While the cadet and junior racers were finishing their vertical race in much cider temperatures than the previous day, the senior racers were scouting out today’s individual course.

Individual Race

The course
The individual course featured 1700 m of ascent over four climbs with three boot packs for the men, and 1350 m of ascent over four climbs with two boot packs for the women.
The course prominently displayed Peak Six Blanc, overlooking the Bruson ski area. The imposing North face of Six Blanc has two prominent couloirs and ridges that the racers ascended and descended. The course was highly technical with a long initial climb up a ski-out track though the forest. Descending entirely off piste, the skiing required skill to navigate refrozen, chopped up chunder. The racers also had to tackle countless switchbacks up the main couloir with many experiencing skin failure in the cold temperatures.

Men’s race

As expected, Kilian Jornet (ESP) dominated the race which after winning a vertical on Saturday brought him a second gold medal. With over a 2 minute gap mid-way through the race, the remaining podium contenders managed to bring it down to less than one minute by the finish. Jornet was challenged by a motivated Damiano Lenzi (ITA) in the first half of the race until the Italian broke his ski and abandoned.
At the end, the next three racers were all within 2 seconds with Robert Antonioli (ITA), new sprint world champion from Friday, taking silver in front of his teammate Matteo Eydallin and the unlucky 4th going to Xavier Gachet (FRA). What a battle for that second place!

The course was really great, with a quite a lot of booting, and some tricky descents. I felt like I raced well, and was keeping a good pace on the climbs and bringing back small gaps on the descents. My only issue came at the very end. I went way too deep on the final booter when I should have left just a little bit more in the tank, and because of that I could barely stand up on the final descent. Crashed twice and lost two spots, which really bummed me out because until then I’d had a super clean race. Not my most brilliant moment but that’s racing!

Jason Dorais (USA) and Nick Elson (CAN) were close behind throughout the race and eventually finished 33rd and 37th respectively. Strong racing on their part as well!

• 39 – Tom Goth (USA)
• 55 – Scott Simmons (USA)
• 62 – Travis Brown (CAN)
• 72 – Peter Knight (CAN)
• 78 – Mateusz Burgunder (USA), still an espoir

Women’s race

In the women’s race, unlike the vertical event, Laetitia Roux (FRA) was unchallenged throughout and won her second title at these world champs. Home girl, Maude Mathys (SUI), finished second about 2 minutes behind, and the espoir Axelle Mollaret (FRA) came in third, further 2 min behind.

The course was really fun, great skin tracks and boot packs, I had a little bit of difficulty on the descents, and I am pretty sick with a bad cough so that slowed me down a little bit, but overall I felt good, strong. Beautiful day for a great race!

The rest of the women, just like the men, all raced up to their current abilities and finished in the following order:

• 29 – Sarah Cookler (USA)
• 30 – Meredith Edwards (USA)
• 33 – Kylee Ohler (CAN)
• 37 – Michelle Roberts (CAN)
• 38 – Martha Burley (CAN)
• 39 – Katarina Kuba (CAN)

Results and beyond

» Full results from today’s individual are here
On Tuesday, tomorrow, with the cadets and juniors racing their individual races, the seniors will get a well deserved rest before tackling the daunting Teams course on Wednesday. The only North American athlete taking part in tomorrow’s racing will be a junior Oliver Bibby from Vancouver, BC.

While several of skimo’s superstars raced and dominated the sprint at Champsec yesterday, many of the big endurance engines were on the sidelines spectating and presumably resting up for today’s vertical event.

Vertical Race

The course:
The vertical course at Verbier was the same as the one in last year’s World Cup where Kilian Jornet outsprinted Matheo Jacquemond to the finish while carrying his skis (which he was subsequently penalized for). An impressive 850 meters of vertical ascent, the course began in a field below Verbier Village. Climbing up through the field and entering the village, racers skied on snow laid down on the main street through the center of town. On reaching the gondola station, racers turned on to the ski runs and up a series of moderately steep switchbacks before a long flat traverse and a second set of switchbacks. Emerging from the tree line, racers encountered a steep slope into which the volunteers carved an amazing two skier wide series of switch backs leading to the final stretch that tackled a steep 100 meters of groomed run to the finish, lined with hundreds of spectators.
Racers were forced to choose between skins that would provide good glide on the flat potions of the route or skins that would grip to the steep icy final slopes.

Men’s race

There was no surprise that Kilian Jornet (SPA) won today’s vertical, however, he not only won but crushed the competition with a gap of 40 seconds!
Racing behind him was a much closer fight but without any big surprises. Anton Palzer (GER), still only an espoir, does well in verticals regularly and came in second in front of a super experienced Lorenzo Holzknecht (ITA). Fourth and fifth place went Werner Martin (SWI) and Kilian’s teammate Marc Pinsach (SPA) respectively. These four men came in within 40 seconds and such small gaps continued down the field.
The highest placed North American was SkinTrack’s contributor Eric Carter (USA) at 39th:

I skied a strategically poor race and hammered hard off the start and through the town. Then paid the price. Nick [Elson] came charging up and closed a lot of space but I managed to hold him off up the final steep groomer. I held in the puke until I crossed the finish line.

• 60 – Travis Brown (CAN)
• 63 – William Laird (USA)
• 68 – Peter Knight (CAN)
• 69 – Mateusz Burgunder (USA), only an espoir

Women’s race

There was a big surprise in the women’s race, and one that totally crushed my prediction, as Spanish cross-country racer Laura Orgue Vila managed to win over skimo’s queen Laetitia Roux (FRA). The difference on the line was 21 seconds, not too big, but proving that the vertical is the most suitable discipline to enter skimo racing either as cross training for another sport or fully transitioning into it.
Laura placed 10th in the 30 km skating at Sochi Olympics in 2014!

Results and beyond

» Full results from today’s vertical racing are here.
» Yesterday’s sprint race coverage is here.
Tomorrow, Sunday, will feature the Cadet and Junior vertical events in which only Oliver Bibby (CAN) will compete for North America. The rest of the team will be resting up and preparing for the exciting individual race to be held on Monday morning on the Bruson side of the valley.