Northern Ireland Mountain Running Association
www.nimra.org.uk

 

Congratulations

Mon 27 August 2007 - Ian Taylor

Congratulations to Desi OHagan and Gary Murray who completed the full Ultra Trail Tour of Mont Blanc over the weekend.  Also to Denis Rankin who was unable to get an entry into the full race and did the subsidiary event instead.

The full tour is 165 kilometres with 9000 metres of climb and has a maximum time limit of 46 hours.  The subsidiary Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix  route is 86 Km with 4500 metres of climb, max time allowed 24 hours.  Results are

Tour du Mont-Blanc
Desi OHagan  38 hrs 08 mins 09 secs (brillant time)
Gary Murray  40 hrs 56 mins, 38 secs

Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix
Denis Rankin  20 hrs 59 mins 26 secs

Full results are not available yet but the winning times of the full tour are usually about 20 hours with the subsidiary one having a fastest time of 10+ hours in 2006.

This race has been described as one of the toughest in Europe but that does not seem to deter runners.  The full tour entry list of 2000 filled up very quickly after entries opened while the lesser event had a further 1500 entries allowed. 

A party of NIMRA athletes jogged and walked round the Mont Blanc tour a couple of years ago but still not quite as quickly as Desi or Gary.  Hopefully Denis will not been making the Mountain Marathon next month quite as tough as the Mont Blanc Tour.