Year: 2005

World Trophy internationals take a larg share of the $100,000 prize money.

Obudu, Nigeria – Ben Dubois of Australia won the first-ever mountain running race held in Nigeria on Sunday 27th November.
Dubois covered the 11Km course, which climbed 800m to the summit of Mt. Obudu in Cross River State, in 48:44 to claim the $50,000 first place prize, the richest award in mountain running.
The fast starting local runners, relatively inexperienced in mountain running, were soon being overhauled by the World Trophy internationals invited to compete. By the half way point, Dubois and Robert Krupicka (CZE) had only Nigerian Danjuma Kopkuddi as company. Krupicka later faded, to leave the remaining pair to battle it out over the final 3Km. Without having to increase his pace, Dubois slowly drew ahead to win by 12 seconds. Kopkuddi was second, winning $20,000, with Krupicka more than 30 seconds adrift, in third ($10,000)
The two invited Italian runners also finished amongst the prize winners, with Alberto Mosca, who represented Italy in the Junior World Trophy some years ago, fourth ($5,000) and former World silver medalist, Emmanuel Manzi, sixth ($2000)
Dope testing was carried out on all prize winners.

The Governor of Cross River state, His Excellency Donald Duke, was delighted with this WMRA associate member race and announced that he would be sponsoring Kokuddi and Danjumba Gyang, who finished fifth, to run in the 2006 World Mountain Running Trophy, which is being staged in Turkey next September.

Anna Pichrtova (CZE) was a comfortable winner in the women’s race over the same distance, to take the $1500 first place prize.
A field of 350 athletes, mostly Nigerians, took part.

Leading Results
Men –
1. Ben du Bois (AUS) 48:44
2. Danjuma Kopkuddi (NIG) 48:56
3. Robert Krupicka (CZE) 49:27
4. Alberto Mosca (ITA) 50:49
5. Danjuma Gyang (NIG) 51:03
6. Emmanuel Manzi (ITA) 51:48
Women –
1. Anna Pichrtova (CZE) 55:46

Applications invited.
The World Masters Mountain Running Championships continues to grow in popularity with over 1100 entrants for the 2005 event in Keswick, England.
All those interested are reminded that the WMRA Council on January 14th will decide on the venue for the 2007 World Masters Championships which will be a joint promotion by WMRA and the World Masters Association (WMA).
Those intersted in staging this event may obtain application forms from Bruno Gozzelino, WMRA secretary,. They should be completed and returned by the 7th January.

Web page update.
The web page has recently been updated as follows: 1. The 2006 calendar of International mountain races, agreed at the recent EAA calendar conference, is now published under ‘Calendar’ 2. The World Trophy technical regulations which replace the old World Trophy rules can be found under the ‘rules’ tab. 3. Changes to the WMRA constitution, agreed at the 2005 WMRA Congress, can be seen under the ‘constitution’ tab. Note especially the new item 8.1h

The home crowd had plenty to cheer about at the World Mountain Running Trophy in Wellington, New Zealand, on Sunday 25 September, with home winners in both the senior men’s and women’s races.

The races, which ascended Mount Victoria in the centre of Wellington, were run over a 4.3km ‘up and down’ loop with a total climb of 310m per lap. After a first climb of 196m, the runners descended for 96m, then climbed back to the summit before a fast descent at the end of each lap. Jonathan Wyatt, a winner of the world title four times in uphill only races, became the first man to win the trophy on both uphill and up and down courses. His time of 53:23 in the 13.5km race gave him a winning margin of more than two minutes over Silver medallist Gabriele Abate of Italy (55:35). Italians also occupied third and fourth places through Davide Chicco (55:41) and Marco Gaiardo (56:08), ensuring that they retained the team title they have won every year except one since the first World Mountain Running Trophy in 1985. Germany’s Helmut Schiessl, who was second in this year’s European Mountain Running Championships, was fifth in 56:22. New Zealand were second in the team competition and France third. Kate McIlroy completed the women’s 9.1km race in 39:40 to take the title by two minutes from Scotland’s Tracey Brindley (41:42), with Anna Pichrtova from the Czech Republic a further 17 seconds back. McIlroy led from early in the race, while Brindley moved through on the second lap to pass Pichrtova and take the Silver medal. Brindley improved on her Bronze medal from 2003, while Pichrtova, the European champion in 2004, had previously taken the Silver medal twice in 2001 and 2004. Italians Vittoria Salvini, Maria Garzia Roberti and Pierangela Baronchelli all finished inside the top ten to ensure that they defended their senior women’s team title. Scotland finished second and the Czech Republic third. The junior men’s 9.1km race was won Vedat Gunen of Turkey in 36:48 ahead of pre race favourite Juan Carlos Carera from Mexico (37:20) and Italy’s Martin Dematteis (37:28). Both Turkey and Italy has three finishers in the top, but it was Turkey who won the team title with 12 points to Italy’s 16. The Czech Republic was third with 41. The junior women’s title went to defending champion Jioulia Mochalova from Russia. She completed the 4.7km race in 21:50 to win by 10 seconds from Slovenia’s Mateja Kosovelj, the Bronze medalist for the last two years, with Turkey’s Hulya Ongun third in 22:46. Kosovelj’s Silver plus fourth and fifth places for Lucija Krkoc and Suza Mladenovic ensured that Slovenia took the team title. Russia was second and Turkey third. Mochalova’s win was an remarkable performance given that the Russian team had only arrived in Wellington at 11:30pm the night before the race and she had only three hours sleep and no opportunity to visit the course. Full results are available at http://www.mountainrunning.org.nz

Records broken at Keswick.
The full results of the Masters World Mountain Running Championships, held yesterday 10th September in Keswick, England, can now be seen by going to the Championship web page via the link on the wmra page.
The event was blessed with brilliant weather in a perfect setting for mountain racing – fitz park in the Keswick town centre surrounded by mountains bathed in sunshine.
A record number of 936 runners actually ran out of an entry of 1111.

All previuos entry levels smashed as 1,111 Master enter for this years championships.

The 5th Masters World Mountain Running Championships to be held in Keswick (England) on Saturday 10th September has received 1,111 entries, smashing all previous entry levels out of sight.
This is due largely to the massive entry list from the Gt. Britain masters, but also to the excellent promotional activity of the LOC, aided by WMRA.
The large entry also confirms the vision of the WMRA in introducing a world level event for Master athletes.
The ‘World Masters Athletics’ responsible for all Masters athletics under the IAAF umbrella also confirm this success by joining WMRA for further editions of the championships – as you will have seen from our previous announcement.
The courses are now marked, early arrivals are training on them, and all is set for some fine competition.

WMA and WMRA agree to organise World Masters championships in mountain running.
The WMA (World Masters Athletics) General Assembly in San Sebastian, ESP, on August 30 decided to add mountain running to the World Masters Championships programme. The Championships will be organised by WMRA (World Mountain Running Association). The 2006 Championships will be held on the weekend of September 23rd 24th in the town of Saillon (Valais), Switzerland.

Record entry received by LOC Keswick (England)
With a few days to go before the entry closing date (Thursday 1st September)there is a record entry of nearly 900 athletes for the 5th WMRA Masters World Monutain Running Championship to be held in Keswick (England) on September 10th.

Wyatt cannot cannot be beaten

Jonathan Wyatt (NZL) continued his unbeaten run in uphill mountain races with a comfortable win in the 5th Grand Prix race – Challenge Stellina (Susa, Italy). With this, his third victory in the Grand Prix series, he becomes the overall winner with one GP race still to go. His 300 points could be equalled by Antonio Molinari (ITA, second in challenge Stellina) but Jonathan has 3 first places which means he wins.
Vittoria Salvini, currently Italy’s best lady mountain runner, won the ladies race. With two Grand Prix victories she could also be the Grand Prix winner, but Izabella Zatorska (POL) and Elisa Desco (ITA) could also win so all depends on the last GP race in Germany (Zell am Harmersbach).
The GP rankings after 5 races can be seen on the Results section of our web page.

The Grand Prix rankings move into their final phase and it looks as though the final race will determine the winners.

Olympic marathoners and mountain runners Jonathan Wyatt and Anna Pichrtova both recorded victories in the 4th WMRA Grand Prix race, ‘The Schlickeralm’ in Telfes (Austria) last weekend.
Jonathans win moved him up to second place in the Grand Prix overall rankings behind Robert Krupicka who finished 4th.
Anna had a comfortable win by a margin of nearly 5 minutes
Full results of the race can be found by going to the Schlickeralm link on the WMRA web page, then clicking ‘Ergebnisse’ (Results), then clicking onto the photograph of ‘Anna Pichrtova 2005’
The present Grand Prix ranking after 4 events can be found on the ‘Results page of the WMRA web page.