Surprises on the Golden Trail

By Stephen Granger

Spanish mountain runner, Jan Margarit, handed down one of the upsets of the European trail-running season, winning the final Golden Trail World Series league race, the Skyrhune 21km, in the French Basque country on Saturday, while Moroccan Elhousine Elazzaoui booked himself a place in the Golden Trail World Series Grand Final on the Canary Island group next month with a solid fifth position.

Astro-physicist and Dutch athlete, Nienke Brinkmann, who studies seismic activity on Mars, created her own shockwaves on planet earth with a convincing win in the women’s competition to set up an exciting dual with series leader Maude Mathys of Switzerland in the Canaries.

French athletes Elise Poncet and Johann Baujard took the respective runners-up berths to make it a ‘double-silver’ for their club, Team Matryx.

Elazzaoui ran strongly and was just off the pace at the shoulder of race-leader and top orienteer, Frederic Tranchand, up to the climb to the La Rhune, the highest point of the race, but a combination of the heat and the testing technical rocky section in the final climb up and initial descent down from La Rhune proved his downfall, with the technical specialists, Margarit and Baujard taking control of the race.

“I felt I could have won this race,” said a rueful Elazzaoui. “But I decided to go out fast and we set a fast pace in the early part of the race.  But I am happy that I succeeded to qualify for the final and I’m looking forward to that new challenge.”

The Moroccan moved up the final league placings to an impressive fifth position overall through adding a third qualifying race and will now focus on the Grand Final, which takes place almost within sight of his home continent.

2019 Skyrhune champion and race record-holder, Thibault Baronian, setting a strong pace in the warm conditions in the early stages and up a long, single-track climb to the first summit.  In true Tour de France style, spectators lined the final 500m to the summit to greet the athletes.

Struggling with a hip injury, Baronian dropped behind, leaving his compatriot Tranchand to use his downhill skills to take a significant lead. Elazzaoui closed the gap on the more runnable section and caught the leader 9km into the race.

The lead duo took advantage of stream crossings to douse themselves in the cold water to ease their discomfort in the hot conditions and turned together through ‘the Gates to Hell’ at the start of the 5.1km climb to La Rhune, the high point of the race at 981m.

Both athletes paid for their earlier ambitious running as Baujard took the lead two km into the climb, and opening a significant gap in pursuit of the summit. But it was Spanish athlete Margarit who snatched the lead shortly before the summit.

Baujard bounced back to regain the lead on the rock-hopping descent as Margarit stopped to tie his shoe-laces, but the latter regained the lead as the two young athletes gave their all in a head to head battle for supremacy.  

Finally, Margarit’s strength told and he opened a gap shortly before the athletes reached the paved road for the final gallop downhill to the finish in Ascain and he broke the tape in 1 hr 52 min 00 sec to win by 48 seconds and book a place to the GTWS Grand Final with a 9^th position overall. Both athletes were well inside Baronian’s race record.

Swiss athlete, Pascal Egli, recorded his best finish of the year, taking third, less than two minutes adrift of Baujard.  

“So happy and happy for Johann too,” Margarit said. “I had the perfect race strategy and was super excited to have executed it perfectly. I made some errors and lost the lead on the downhill – got stuck behind the runners on first downhill but caught up on the climb. Then on the downhill my laces came undone and I had to stop to tie them and Johann passed me again. But I was able to take the lead at the top of the very last climb and pushed to the finish.”

Brinkmann overcame her technical limitations and a fall to shatter the record by 9 minutes, finishing in 2:04:39 – eight minutes clear of Poncet with Sara Alonso of Spain third, just ahead of American Dani Moreno.  

South African Toni McCann was still feeling the effects of a 40km race in La Palma last weekend, but managed a top ten finish against a strong women’s line-up at the Gorbeia – Suzien SkyRace 31km in Spain yesterday (Sunday).  McCann finished 8^th overall.

“It was tough,” admitted McCann. “Just super muddy – it felt less like trail running and more like mud skiing!  The top section was incredibly beautiful though. Nice and technical. I ended 8^th – disappointed to be honest. My head let me down today as much as my body. Hadn’t recovered well after last week in la Palma and so I went in already defeated.

“But as always there were lots of lessons. I know I can compete here – I just have to be smarter about how I train at home.”

Results

Men

1 Jan Margarit (Sp) 1:52:00 (record)

2 Johann Baujard (Fr) 1:52:48

3 Pascal Egli (Switz) 1:54:23

4 Frederic Tranchand (Fr) 1:55:36

5 Elhousine Elazzaoui (Mor) 1:56:12

Women

1 Nienke Brinkmann (Ned) 2:04:39 (record)

2 Elise Poncet (Fr) 2:12:53

3 Sara Alonso (Sp) 2:19:01

4 Daniella Moreno (USA) 2:19:53

5 Emily Harrop (Fr) 2:21:37

Final Golden Trail League Standings

Men

1 Stian Angermund (Nor) 300

2 Bart Przedwojewski (Pol) 250

3 Davide Magnini (It) 234

4 Remi Bonnet (Fr) 219

5 Elhousine Elazzaoui (Mor) 209

Women

1 Maude Mathys (Switz) 300

2 Nienke Brinkmann (Ned) 288

3 Anais Sabrie (Fr) 254

4 Judith Wyder (Switz) 241

5 Blandine L’Hirondel (Fr) 222