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Downhill Skills Determine Podium Placings

Oliver Kraus / 06.09.2011

It almost seems a daily routine by now that David Lopez Castan and Miguel Caballero Ortega lead the field of racers into the finish area at the 2011 GORE-TEX Transalpine-Run. For the 4th day in a row, the two members of the Spanish National trail running team clearly dominated the race, reaching Scuol almost seven minutes ahead of the second-fastest team. Castan and Ortega, recognizable by their bright blue leader jerseys by now, covered today’s 39,93 kilometers and 2,339 meters of altitudinal gain en route to Switzerland in 4:06:46.8 hours.

Their most immediate threat, Scottish Team Inov-8 Gore-Tex Footwear, took 4:13:40.6 hours on the trail between Galtür and Scuol (SUI). Jethro Lennox and Joe Symonds’ attempts to break the dominance of the Spaniards all seem to have failed to date. Third to arrive in the spa community of Scuol were once again Julien Chorier (FRA) and Philipp Reiter (GER) with a time of 4:19:54.7 hours.

The overall leaders Castan/Ortega have by now accumulated a cushy lead of roughly 35 minutes over the scond-ranking Scotsmen. As such, the Spaniards enjoyed the unheard-of luxury of taking in the breath-taking scenery on today’s Futschölpass (2.768m) and Piz Clünas (2.793m) without feeling too rushed.

Bluebird skies, coolish temperatures in the morning and racy singletrack en route to Switzerland left little to be desired for the field of racers. Twenty-nine year-old David Caballero Ortega shared: “This was by far the most beautiful stage to date and we took some time to savor it.�

An experience that clearly motivated the overall leaders enough to chance a surprise dash on the first lengthy descent towards Alp Valmala (1,980m).

<b>Downhill competencies as a deciding factor in today’s stage</b>

Yet, the Spanish leaders were not entirely oblivious to their competitors from Scotland. Ortega from Segovia, Spain, recalled, “They kept the pressure up but we managed to run our race. It was on the first downhill that we noticed that we were stronger and decided to increase our speed to get away for good.�

Their strategy panned out once again, which Joe Symonds had no problem acknowledging: “Both are extremely strong on the downhill. They simply get along better with conditions on the descents than us. Unfortunately, I’m still somewhat handicapped by my fall on the second day and I may still be a little too cautious at this point.� Such hesitance would seem plausible given that Symonds’ lacerated leg required several stitches at the end of Stage Two.

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