“WMRA Grand Prix – 5th race
Start list for 13th Feuerkogel Berglauf was nearly closed when two new names appeared: Marco Gaiardo from Italy and Andrea Mayr from Austria.

A view to the mountain on the day before the race showed similar picture as 11 years ago for European Trophy – the summit was covered with heavy clouds, but the weather forecast was promising sunny morning, ideal for the race.

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GAIARDO Marco

All the runners start together in Ebensee. Shortly after the start, when asphalted road changes to the steep mountain path, top runners started to make a selection – Gaiardo, Dlughos, Kroel, Kosovelj were already on the head of the field. Gaiardo was dominant all the time and wan the race with 4th best time of the course. In the history of the race only Wyatt was faster (in 2005, 06 and 07). Dlughosz was comfortably second, Kroel and Kosovelj were fighting for the third position up to the last km, where more flat path fitted more Kosovelj. In the history, only 13 results of the course are under one hour, 4 from this year.

In the women’s race Andrea Mayr – ex-world and European Champion – was running on the first position from the start to the finish, finally she improved the course record for more than 4 minutes. Ex record holder Anna Frost from New Zealand was second just 10 second behind her old record. Mateja Kosovelj (SLO) finished third – on the same position as her brother Mitja in the men’s race.&nbsp,

MAYR Andrea

In the WMRA Grand Prix competition Anna Frost is still leading with 305 points, Ana Milesova (CZE) is second and Pavla Matyasova is third. It is interesting, that we have 4 different winners in 5 GP races.

In the men’s competition Wyatt is the first position with 3 victories and 300 points, Gaiardo came closer to 260 points and Dlughosz is third with 207 points.

The next station of the WMRA Grand Prix will be after the World Trophy – SchneebergLauf as 6th GP race will take place on 28th Oct.

Tomo Sarf for WMRA