Anna Pichrtova running up Mt Grintovek (© c)
The second of the six WMRA Grand Prix race series took place to the top of Mt Grintovek on Slovenia’s northern border with Austria on Sunday 30 July. This was the steepest race in the series with the course climbing 1960m in 9.5km in which both men and women ran.
Jonathan Wyatt (NZL) and Anna Pichrtova (CZE), both Olympic marathoners, established themselves firmly as favourites to win the series as they recorded their second victories by large margins.
Wyatt was more than 5 minutes ahead of the second placed Roman Skalsky (CZE) and third placed Ben Dubois (AUS). These three now occupy the top three positions in the overall placings. Wyatt’s time on this tough course was an astonishing 1 hour 15 minutes 43 seconds which took two minutes off the course record held by Marco Gaiardo (ITA) who was not running on this occasion.
Pichrtrova’s winning margin over local girl Mateja Kosovelj (SLO) was in excess of four minutes and placed her 18th in a field of 250. Iva Milesova (CZE) finished third to put her in overall second position in front of last year’s grand Prix winner Izabela Zatorska (POL).
The small country of Slovenia (Population two million) once again impressed with both its organisation of and performances in this demanding branch of athletics.
Full results and Grand Prix ranking after two events can be seen on the ‘results’ tab of www.wmra.info and on the event web page accessed via the link on that page.
The third Grand Prix takes place next Sunday, 6 August in Telfes, Austria, where the popular Schlickeralm race has attracted a high quality entry.
Danny Hughes for the IAAF
