Sandes takes on strong field in top 100-miler trail race

WHILE South Africa’s top track and field athletes battle for world championship glory in Beijing, three Protea trail athletes take on some of the best on the planet in two major events in Europe.

Hout Bay’s “desert king” Ryan Sandes takes on the strongest-ever field in the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc 100 miler which got underway yesterday evening in the French skiresort of Chamonix. Husband-andwife team, Christiaan and Landie Greyling, will be competing in the Gore Tex Transalpine Run - a multiday race through four countries.

The UTMB, as the Mont Blanc race is known, is part of the biggest trail racing event in the world, with over 10 000 runners taking part in five trail races varying from 50km to 330km. But it is the classic “hun- dred miler” race which attracts the world’s best and which will test Sandes to the limit.

Sandes was forced to withdraw prior to the USA’s Western States 100 miler in June due to a stomach virus, and has turned his disappointment into adventure, opting to take on the UTMB for the first time in his career.

Despite his record-breaking run along the Drakensberg Traverse earlier this year, Sandes is relatively inexperienced on tough mountain terrain, and he will be up against some of the world’s top mountain athletes.

“It is great to be finally running UTMB, the race that inspired me to want to run a 100 mile mountain race,” said Sandes from Chamonix yesterday. “It’s the biggest and most competitive 100 mile race in the world, so I am looking forward to the experience. I am feeling really good and hopefully can get a good result.”

Spanish star Luis Alberto Hernando, who has many ultra-distance titles to his name, and who placed second at the world ultra-distance championship in France in May, is favoured to win.

Waiting in the wings are an array of top athletes, with French runner Xavier Thenenard, American Sage Canaday and Spaniard Miguel Heras also capable of victory on their day.

Sandes’ ability over the longer distance will stand him in good stead, and he could come through strongly in the second half.

The race loops around Mont Blanc and follows the Tour du Mont Blanc hiking path that normally takes hikers between seven to nine days to complete. The lead runners will complete the course in just over 20 hours, with the final cut-off time after 46hrs30min.

A few hundred kilometres to the east, the Greylings will be breaking new ground and attempting to earn a podium finish in the Transalpine Eight Day 268 km team- trail event through four countries. The event starts in Germany and moves into the Austrian and Swiss Alps before finishing in Italy.

With a total vertical ascent of 16 310 m – almost twice the height of Mount Everest – the Greylings will be tackling some of the toughest trails in the sport in the mixed-team category.

“These mountains are higher than anything in South Africa,” Christiaan admitted. “And we have never run more than four days in a row. So it’s a little scary. But we hope that our status as novice run- ners in this event might help – we will be mentally fresh and excited as everything will be completely new to us.”

Landie, who has three international race titles to her name this year, will be aiming for a fourth. “The European athletes will be hard to beat – they have so much experience on running on these trails,” reflected Landie.

“I don’t know much about our rivals but the Italian team with top trail athlete, Federica Boifava, will be hard to beat. German trail athlete, Anne Marie Flammersfeld, is also competing in the mixed category – she is a strong mountain runner, who recently broke the record for the ascent of Kilimanjaro.”

The race started this morning in Obestof in Germany with a 35km leg into Lech in Austria and finishes next Sunday in Sulden, Italy.