“Sunday, 20 December – Podbrdo-Slovenia.
Wolfgang Munzel, WMRA delegate, visited the venue of the World Long Distance Mountain Running Championships, that will be held on Saturday, 18 June 2016.
Together with the LOC’s key leaders, Mr. Munzel visited the village center where most of the activities will be organized (welcome office, race office, technical meeting, start and finish area).
Thanks to the almost summer-like weather, the group was able to access sections of the course typically snow-covered at this time of year.
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“As such, the team of five were able to consider alternative routes should there be any need to update the route on race day should bad weather ensue.&nbsp,
National Teams will be accommodated in cozy and friendly family run hotels in the neighboring villages.
The LOC will organize transportation for Teams arriving to the international Ljubljana Airport to the venue, which is a one-hour ride by bus.
The race venue is familiar to many as the area hosted the international mountain running competition in 2011 (at that time referred to as the WLDMR Challenge).
The course for 2016 is almost the same with the exception of the first part of the route and the race distance.
In 2011, race participants started on the saddle about 300m above the village and the course was 38,5km long.
Now, the start is in the village on the same place as the finish, the changed course has a marathon distance (42km) and +-2800m total elevation gain (course: http://www.gm4o.si/en/course-2015.html ).
This course was already tested in 2014 and 2015. The current course records is 4:03:14 / Teklay, 2013 (old men&rsquo,s record: 3:22:31 / Mitja Kosovelj, 2011). The men&rsquo,s winning time below 3:45:00 is expected at the World Champs (see the 2013/14 results: http://www.gm4o.si/en/statistics.html ).
The event web page will be &quot,LIVE&quot, before the end of January and invitation letters with PEF and FEF forms will be sent to National Federations before the end of February.
Mr. Munzel expressed his full confidence to the local staff and the LOC is looking forward to welcoming all national teams and runners to Podbrdo in June.

Edited from Nancy Hobbs (WMRA Treasurer) and Tomo Sarf (WMRA Council member)

Source of the pictures (photos by Tomo Sarf):
on front page:
– Munzel, Sarf and LOC members during the visit,
on second page:
– Pippa Maddams (GBR),&nbsp,woman winner LDMRCH 2011,
– Mitja Kosovelj (SLO), man winner LDMRCH 2011.”