world cup champion | Running news from around the World

This is the official press release.

December 8th is a public holiday in Colombia (Inmaculada Concepción). And this day also is a holiday for the Towerrunning sport. It is the traditional date of Carrera Ascenso Torre Colpatria, which hosts the Towerrunning World Cup final since 2010. As in the previous year many of the leading international stair climbers had been invited to the race in the heart of Colombian capital Bogota and joined the event to fight for the decisive World Cup points. Year after year the main challenge for the international athletes is to beat the Colombian runners being used to the 2600m altitude.

The venue is Torre Colpatria, a 50-story skyscraper, which is a landmark of the 8 million metropolis Bogota, illuminated every night by thirty-six color changing Xenon lights. In fact the event started the night before with fireworks and a special light show attracting thousands of people in the surrounding downtown streets.

On race morning action on stairs began as early as 8:00 am and within 3 hours about 5,000 athletes climbed up more than 900 stairs to the 48th floor after a short prerun. The elites had the privilege to ascend to the very top – the heliport of Colombia’s tallest building.

In respect to the women’s World Cup only one medal-decision was open. Behind Suzanne Walsham (AUS), who dominated the season and managed to secure her second World Cup title weeks before the final, Kristin Frey (USA) was the definite silver medallist. Cindy Harris (USA) had to finish 3rd at least in Bogota to overtake Cristina Bonacina in the fight for the bronze medal. The defending World Cup champion from Italy missed the race due to undergoing a surgery. Nevertheless it was clear, that for Harris the medal race would become a very difficult task in view of the strong Colombian field. 10 female elite athletes lined up at the start to climb Torre Colpatria in groups of two.

Surprise race winner became Blanca Liliana Moreno (COL) with a new track record for female athletes (6:14.0) beating two times previous champion Maria Eugenia Rodriguez (COL, 6:27.0) starting together with Cindy Harris in the penultimate pair and four time winner Angela Figueroa (6:38.8), who climbed with Suzanne Walsham in the last pair. Walsham narrowly missed the podium (6:47.0) and finished 6th – 28 seconds before Cindy Harris (7th, 7:15.4) so Cristina Bonacina remained on the World Cup Bronze medal rank. Although Suzanne Walsham wasn’t able to celebrate the 10th podium rank in her 10th season race, she achieved a total of 1380.0 World Cup points, which means a new points record in the Towerrunning history.

Even more exciting was the pre-race situation for the males. As World Cup leader Thomas Dold (GER) was not in Bogota Piotr Łobodzinski (POL) had the small chance to win the World Cup by winning the race in Torre Colpatria. Behind Dold and Łobodzinski not less than five further athletes were in the medal race too. Four of them participated in Bogota. Only Omar Bekkali (BEL), who was third in the ranking after his second place in Singapore two weeks before, did not join the World Cup final and therefore had to fear for his medal rank.

Finally on this sunny day track record holder Juan Pablo Rangel (COL) clocked his 4th win in a time of 4:44.1. Frank Nicolas Carreno became runner-up for the 3rd time in a row (4:58.5) and Nicolas Herrera finished third (5:11.7) so in the end again all six podium places went to the Colombian hosts and the international elite athletes must wait another year for the first top 3 result on the maybe hardest 980 stairs in the world.

Best foreign athlete became Bartosz Świątkowski (POL) on the 9th position (5:33.4). Although giving everything and being completely exhausted after the race this place did not bring him enough points to secure a World Cup medal. In the end he missed the required 5th rank by just 6 seconds so once more a few seconds in the last one of 157 races counting towards the World Cup ranking made the difference between the chance on a medal and the 6^th position, which finally remained for Świątkowski – another bitter decision for the Polish Towerrunner, who already had the misfortune to lose the victory at this year’s Masters Race in Prague by 0.05 seconds (against compatriot Łobodzinski). The situation of Świątkowski strikingly reminds us of Łobodzinski’s Bogota race in 2011, where he missed the World Cup bronze medal by 6.8 seconds. This year things went better for him. Despite again being without a chance and finishing 17th in Torre Colpatria Łobodzinski could celebrate his first silver medal (1001.0 points) behind defending and new Towerrunning World Cup champion Thomas Dold.

Not only Dold, another German had a reason to celebrate too: Christian Riedl (GER) became 12th in Bogota (5:42.7). With a total of 961.2 World Cup points he finished the season on the bronze medal rank – with a razor-thin edge over Omar Bekkali (954.0) and Tomas Celko (948.0), who was not able to improve his score in Bogota with his 22nd rank. Fabio Ruga became 16th in Bogota and 7th in the World Cup ranking.

Besides the World Cup athletes and Colombian elite runners thousands of children and amateur runners accepted the challenge to climb Torre Colpatria and thereby raised funds for Operacion Sónrisa, the leading global foundation to provide surgery to children with cleft lip and palate, facial tumors or burns. It was a logistical masterpiece of the race organizers to manage an event with so many climbers and to provide fair and safe conditions for everyone. Additionally there was a lot of supporting programme for athletes, visitors and the press.

The exciting race day in Bogota was terminated in the spotlight of the media, when the coveted trophies and medals of the Towerrunning World Cup 2012 were handed out to the champions. In the end everyone agreed, that Carrera Ascenso Torre Colpatria once more was a worthy final for a great Towerrunning season – a season with almost 200 events in 27 countries attracting about 105,000 participants from 54 nations.

Bogota 2012, Towerrunning, Amateur Race

Towerrunning 2012, Bogota from above

Towerrunning 2012, Bogota, Colpatria Tower

Towerrunning 2012, Bogota, Elite on the top

Towerrunning 2012, Bogota,

Towerrunning 2012, Bogota, Łobodziński and Riedl

Towerrunning 2012, Bogota, Walsham Cup

Towerrunning World Cup final – Bogota 2012 (biegizagraniczne.wordpress.com)
Towerrunning – World Cup Final 2012 in Bogota (biegizagraniczne.wordpress.com)

This an official press release.

Basel

21st April, 2012

World Cup Results and Press Release

It was a select field that has met up to participate in Towerrunning Basel 2012. 565 athletes from 12 countries completed the race including a 200 meters pre-run and 31 floors in the Messeturm, the highest building in Switzerland. Among them elite stair climbers from Europe, Australia, China and the United States competed for valuable points for the Towerrunning World Cup and the Vertical World Circuit.

Man of the day was German athlete Christian Riedl. He defeated the 542 stairs in 2:36.0 min. and thus broke the course record of Tomas Celko (SVK), winner of the previous two editions, by 1.3 seconds. Celko (2:43.2) at the end had to be satisfied with third place, since Italian Fabio Ruga with a time of 2:39.0 also placed before him. On fourth rank Bartosz Swiatkowski (POL) celebrated the best Masters Race result in his Towerrunning career.

In the women’s competition Marie Fee Breyer with a time of 3:26,6 laid the foundation for a possible German double victory. After neither last year’s World Cup champion Cristina Bonacina (ITA, 6th rank) nor the current World Cup leader Kristin Frey (USA, 3rd rank) could undercut the time of Breyer, her hopes for the third consecutive Basel triumph rose. But then Suzanne Walsham (AUS) managed to clock an incredible 3:11,4. This amazing time was not only 21 seconds faster than Breyer’s climb, but also smashed the track record by more than 15 seconds. After winning in London and finishing 2nd at the Empire State Building Run-Up Walsham celebrated her third podium finish in the current season, making her one of the top favourites for winning the Towerrunning World Cup.

The special international class of the again outstandingly organized race with a prize money fund of more than 2.000 € becomes clear when looking at the results sheets: In the men’s race the top 8 runners came from eight different nations and at the women’s podium runners from three continents were represented.

Besides the event for international elite athletes separate races for kids, teams and fire-fighters were held. Worthy of mention in this connection is the performance of Spaniard David Robles Tapia, who not only achieved a brilliant 5th rank in the individual competition, but also won the fire-fighters’ team event with his colleagues from the “Bomberos Ayuntamiento Zaragoza”. 108 fire crews with complete turnout gear (in the elite category even with breathing apparatus) assembled at the start line in front of the Messeturm, which led to plenty of action and overtaking in the narrow staircase of the tower.

After taking the stairs in Basel the European Towerrunning scene picks up steam. In May national stair climbing series in Czech Republic (Run Up Series) and Austria (Towerrunning Austria) will be launched and the Masters Races in Warsaw (May 19th) and Berlin (May 27th) will attract a lot of international stair climbers. On 3 June the MesseTurm in Frankfurt will host the first Towerrunning European Championships.

Further information: http://www.towerrunning.com/

Please see: https://biegizagraniczne.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/international-running/