This is an official press release.
Towerrunning appears to be a sport of the 21st century as it fits perfectly to the age of urbanization and the big city way of life. It provides a unique opportunity to make your workout in the office building during the 30-minute lunch break and you don’t even need to care about the weather conditions. These features as well as the growing need for healthy activities and new challenges have made Towerrunning increasingly popular, finishing with more than 105,000 athletes climbing the stairs all over the world in 2012. While most of the participants are amateur runners, who climb for the fitness reason – very often combined with a charity aspect, there is a growing group of elite runners. For them the race itself is becoming increasingly important – the idea of championships and titles lies in the very nature of sport. Since 2009 the Towerrunning World Cup, an international ranking system for the stair climbing sport, provides a possibility for stair runners to measure with other athletes throughout the entire season. A mathematically balanced scoring system, the consideration of many different distances from sprint races over the classics in the international skyscrapers to the stairs marathons, and the differentiated evaluation of all event modes (individual time trial, mass start, tournament systems, multi climbs, etc.) provide a fair and reasonable recognition of varied facets of the Towerrunning sport. In 2013 an revolving ranking system has been introduced, which allows a reliable comparison at every time point in the season.
At almost all stair climbing races valuable World Cup points can be collected. Central pillar of the ranking is a selection of the most spectacular and prestigious events – such as the legendary Empire State Building Run Up, the races in the metropolises of the Far East in Taipei and Singapore or the European highlights in Frankfurt or Basel – chosen because of world class participants fields, the internationality of the athletes and for their organizational quality. These so-called Masters Races get a higher weight for the ranking. The World Cup final traditionally is staged in Bogota, where year after year the best stair climbers join an extraordinary and challenging Towerrunning event.
In 2012 more than 150 races in 25 countries counted towards the World Cup rankings. German elite stair climber Thomas Dold won his fourth consecutive Towerrunning World Cup title. Piotr Łobodzinski (POL) and Christian Riedl (GER) completed the podium. Defending women’s World Cup champion is Suzanne Walsham (AUS), who clearly defeated Kristin Frey (USA) and Cristina Bonacina (ITA). The World Cup system also includes a Nations Cup ranking, which was again won by the German team.
From 2013 the World Cup ranking is organized by the newly founded Towerrunning World Association, which unites the Towerrunning Company (Towerrunning e.U.), national stair climbing associations, athletes networks as well as organizers of national and international stair climbing events and series. The World Association provides a framework for the regulation, promotion and furtherance of the Towerrunning sport and cares about the sports jurisdiction, the optimization of media coverage and media relations work and the global sports marketing.
About 200 races are expected worldwide and new countries are going to join the Towerrunning family. Besides the World Cup ranking in many countries national Towerrunning series and championships are organized by national Towerrunning associations to create an attractive surrounding for competitive stair climbing as well as for hobby runners. Everything is in place for a thrilling and spectacular season, when the battle for the coveted World Cup trophy will be opened again and ten of thousands of runners around the world will accept the unique challenge Towerrunning.
2013 Masters Races – downloadable calendar of Towerrunning events
Masters Race 2013
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