ALL the prime vantage points on the A82 through Glencoe had long since been taken. Cars, caravans and camper vans packed out every layby, the closest Scotland gets to the travelling cavalcade which sets up an ad hoc base camp each July on the contours of Tour de France climbs like Alpe d’Huez.
Set against an autumnal canvas of greens and browns, occasional spectators in fluorescent running gear perched on every corner of this awe-inspiring valley, while high above them, three specks on the landscape were just about visible against the horizon. This is Salomon Skyline Scotland weekend, a three-day festival of the fast growing sport that is sky running and Scotland’s most infamous glen provided the perfect backdrop.
The action had actually got under way on Friday night, with something called the vertical race, which entirely lives up to its billing, sending participants 1km upwards in a quick 40-minute sprint.
On Saturday it was the turn of something called the Ring of Steall Skyrace over 29k and its fiendish cousin, the 120km Ben Nevis Ultra. But this was the weekend’s headline attraction, the Salomon Glencoe Skyline, a 54k combination of running and scrambling with £4000 and some serious kudos up for grabs for the winner.
The thought of it had attracted some trail-running royalty. Spain’s Kilian Jornet is regarded as the Lionel Messi of the sport so it was little surprise that it would be the Catalan, the first of those fast-moving specks traversing the glen’s ridges, who was also first to the finish at Kinlochleven in a white T-shirt which was noticeably less pristine than it had been at the start of the day. He shaved around six minutes off the record time which closest challenger Jon Albon had set when winning this title 12 months previously.
It might have been even quicker, considering a minor miscommunication with the volunteer organisers at the fifth GPRS station led to all three of the podium finishers going in the wrong direction for an instant. “I know but it was 10m or something!” said Jornet, whose Swedish partner Emelie Forsberg also won in the women’s event.
This was Jornet’s first visit to Scotland and it is unlikely to be his last. He was too preoccupied to register the bagpiper which met him as he traversed the foot of the valley but he went off into the night planning to permit himself a dram or two. “To be in Scotland, well I thought that view would only be two metres in front of me, but today we had an amazing day with the sun,” said this six-time winner of this Skyrunner Extreme series, before laughing off the Messi comparison. “The landscapes are beautiful here, it is very similar to where I live in Norway, with the fjords and the steep mountains.
“I love this kind of terrain – today was one of the most beautiful races in the world without a doubt,” he added.
“I wanted to come all these years, and I am really happy I finally came. For sure it is a race to come back to. How will I celebrate? Maybe a Scottish whisky? I have a race in Spain next Saturday, so I need to chill out a bit. I will have one whisky ... one bottle probably!”
You meet some special people when you cover these events and Jornet wasn’t the only one. There was home hero Donnie Campbell, originally from Skye, who was first to finish in the Ben Nevis Ultra on Saturday. Or how about Mira Rai of Nepal who was the first female finisher, and a remarkable fifth overall, in that race. Brought up in Bhojpur, a remote part of Eastern Nepal, she will send her cheque back home to help her family and fellow villagers with the farming chores.
“They will use the money for important things, things like rice, food, medical supplies or to help people’s studies,” Rai said. “I also have my own travelling expenses and things like that.”
While second-place finisher Jonathan Albon had the consolation of taking the overall Skyrunner Extreme series crown, last year’s runner-up wasn’t so lucky. Having tested out his shin injury in Friday night’s vertical race, Glasgow-based Salomon athlete Tom Owens gave up on his hopes of competing in Saturday’s Ring of Steall Skyrace, eventually won by Norway’s Stian Angermund-Vik.
The first Scottish finisher in yesterday’s Glencoe Skyrace was Edinburgh’s Hector Haines.
“It is always special to run around here, to have a race which goes on some pretty cool ridges and the top of some Munros,” said Owens.
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