Kilian Jornet and his endless improvement: Zegama champion for the eleventh time | Kinds of sports

Almost two decades have passed, and Kilian Jornet’s only rival in Zegama-Aizkorri is still Kilian Jornet. His eleventh victory in the world’s most sought-after mountain marathon was never in doubt. Learning does not lie, and the great tyrant drag This spring he improved on his 2022 performance, a year in which he not only won but also broke the record by more than seven minutes to 3 hours 36 minutes 40 seconds, with 42 kilometers of wind and 2,750 meters of positive incline. And he’ll stay there for another year, his only blemish coming on Sunday when he crushed his rivals in 3 hours 38 minutes 07 seconds, the second-best time in history. Elhouzin Elazzaoui repeated for second place in 8m09s, an abyss for a man who was 26 seconds away from the title in 2023. Bart Przedwojewski, the Pole who rounded out the podium, was the happiest of all, accepting his mortal condition: “He can’t be beaten. For runners like us, this is another level.”

Kilian foils any plan for the Kenyans to revolt from the very beginning and sets course for a time trial against himself. And he wins it before the halfway point, beating the 2022 sectionals by up to 40 seconds. That’s how, after this two-kilometer pilgrimage from Sancti Spiritu, Aizkorri capped a worship comparable to the Tour de France, the reason why more than 10,000 people will try their luck in the drawing of 250 of the just over 500 starting numbers handed out. organization. But his somewhat bloated belly in the third hour reminded him of his humanity, and he assumed the record wouldn’t fall. However, he fell like a rocket, a perfect combination of speed and coordination. “They told me they were coming and I had to push,” he smiled at the deception. So he looked back, placing the cyclist, forced to remove him, onto the ropes.

After the 2023 weather apocalypse, it was a dream day for runners. There had been no rain since Thursday, the mud had turned into a sponge, and overcast skies on Sunday left temperatures at a perfect 20 degrees. “The times can be perfectly compared,” the Catalan emphasized, comparing the times with 2022 on a dry route. As then, the pilgrimage to Zegama begins at dawn: kilometers of cars parked on the side of the road and crowds celebrating not so much a competition as a way of life: the mountain. An endless drop filling the peaks between the fog and that humidity that gives the feeling of sliding to the technical part, a minefield between the meadow, stones and ridges.

Paradise for Sylvia Northscar, who took advantage of her big growth spurt to enter the race with an uncertain outlook, without the winners of the last seven races of the Golden Trail Series. He comes to the shelter with an endless smile and raises his hands as if turning up the volume on the radio. The clock stops at 4 hours 29 minutes 12 seconds and Sara Alonso, who took part in the race and was hospitalized with pneumonia, and Malen Osa sit on the vacant throne, which was claimed by two friends from Guipuzkoa. The thermometer and its damned 39 degrees left the first, bronze in 2022, without a golden opportunity. “This is a very big loss both for the race and for me. He is my direct rival and at the same time I wish him all the best. I wanted to run it with her and it makes me very sad,” concluded Osa, who trains every week on the route that so many crave.

At 21, Osa, a prodigy of regularity in her short journey through the Goldens with races on the 20-kilometer limit, ran her first marathon and handled it like a veteran: saving bullets, not finishing in the top 20 until almost the equator. She bet on the technical part, her strength, and began the chase for second place, 6 minutes 07 seconds behind the winner. From the Swiss Teresa Leboeuf, who attacked at the start and went from high to low, to the Asturian Marta Martinez, who withstood the push and completed the podium, happily finishing with the Asturian flag 20 seconds from the finish. Like Wasp, who jumped between hugs with Northscar in another example of friendship and rivalry.

The Norwegian skipped steps to clap hundreds of hands near the finish line – an obligatory ritual in the city-turned-cathedral drag with a population of just over a thousand people. Like Manuel Merillas; The Leonese, who loves bad weather, honored his number 1 as last year’s winner, although he was about three minutes behind his number. “The biggest mistake 95% of runners make is trying to follow other people, it’s like flipping a coin.” The top downhill competitor cut as much as he could from Aizkorri but was 49 seconds off the podium in fifth place.

And he, like the rest of us, congratulated Kilian, a pioneer who promoted his sport alongside his fetish career. “Zegama is Zegama,” he said, one of those simple phrases that remained. An entry written in the present tense because stopping doesn’t occur to him. “I am a recreational runner, and now I am a professional in other areas. There will be times when we will run slower, but we will enjoy the same.” He says this from a vantage point, 17 years after his first win in 2007. Is this the best Kilian? “Good, yes. I’m training and running better. I think I’m improving a little every year.” Its endless improvement. The response of others, such as the smiling Przedwojewski, who has it as wallpaper on his laptop: “Yes, it is. Every year is the best.”

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