Traces des Ducs de Savoie
Arnaud Julia Bonmati Wins TDS, First Race of the 2013 UTMB Festival
News Release (Edited by Rob Howard) / 29.08.2013
The North Face Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc last night welcomed the first winners of this edition 2013 around 10:00pm. The TDS - Traces des Ducs de Savoie - took off from Courmayeur that morning at 7:00am and is famous for being the wildest race of the whole week. The race covers 119km with 7,250m of altitude gain, and it has now finally found its place, attracting a very high level of competitors.
At 7:00am in Courmayeur the 1,526 runners were about to discover a technical alpine course with the sun on their side and in mild temperatures. They were ideal weather conditions to go through the very technical Col de Chavannes and Col du Passeur de Pralognan.
From the beginning a group of the favourite runners gathered together and fifteen of them went through the first check point together. Then the former adventure racing world champion, Arnaud Julia Bonmati (Team Buff/Spain) took off and started to create a gap on his main rivals, in total control.
With a time of 15:09 Arnaud Julia Bonmati won the most significant victory of his career in the world of trail running. After starting competing in adventure racing, orientateering raids and winning the World Adventure Racing title, the tough Spaniard has for the past 3 years participated in more trail races. He finished 31st last year in the UTMB, won the first edition of the Transgrancanaria and secured other very good places before this comfortable victory.
The Italian runner Mattia Roncoroni, who was for a while in second place, had to face the challenge of the French metronome Antoine Guillon. Guillon ran much of the race around 15th place, then the organiser of the Grand Raid Occitan began a relentless rise through the rankings during the last few kilometres to reach the Italian. (Rancoroni later admitted to having suffered difficulties 8 kilometres from the end.) Guillon finished the race in second place, as he did in 2012 and Mattia Roncoroni showed up, very tired, approximately 20 minutes later in third place.
In the women’s race Nathalie Mauclair was determined to show that she could be as efficient on the technical mountain routes as she is on the smoother routes she usually shines on.
Despite difficulties during the last kilometres the Lafuma team runner kept the 33 minute lead she had on Claire Price. It was an emotional finish and with her 2 children at her side the radiant Mauclair announced; "I might have started a bit quickly, but I managed to keep going..."
Claire Price, the British French speaking, member of the Hong Kong Salomon team, took 2nd place confirming her reputation as a tough competitor at these distances. She had finished second in the 2012 edition and won many other races during the year. The Italian competitor Lisa Borzani arrived an hour later as the third women to finish.
Tomorrow (Friday), at 9 :00am the CCC (Courmayeur Champex Chamonix) will take off from Courmayeur and at 4:30pm the UTMB will start from Chamonix Mont-Blanc.
The weather forecasts are very good for the week-end: Sunshine, but not too hot ...
4,300 competitors will be running tomorrow on the tracks of the Tour du Mont-Blanc in a race shared with all the volunteers, the towns and the countries visited, while enjoying the wonderful alpine scenery.
Facts and Figures For the TDM
Registrations: 1526 total, women: 165 (10,81% )
Finishers : 513 (33,62% of registered runners) women: 38 (7,41% of the finishers scratch) (23,03% of the women registered)
Abandons; 490 (32,11% of the registered runners )
Results Men
Arnaud JULIA BONMATI (ESP) - Team Buff, 15:09:59
Antoine GUILLON (FRA) - Team Lafuma, 15:21:26
Mattia RONCORONI (ITA), 15:31:20
Results Women
Nathalie MAUCLAIR (FRA) - Team Lafuma, 17:36:41
Claire PRICE (GB) - Team Salomon Hong Kong, 18:09:23
Lisa BORZANI (ITA) - Team Lafuma, 19:07:14
SleepMonsters
