There’s something special about a small island in a big sea. Add mountains and it’s a recipe for success. The Madeira Ultra SkyMarathon® will host the second Skyrunner® Ultra Series race on June 4, after the recent Transvulcania Ultramarathon on the island of La Palma.
For the first time, the island of Madeira, Portugal, will feature on the Skyrunner® World Series. The 55 km course with a brutal 4,000m vertical climb will welcome runners from across the globe up for the challenge.
Anna Frost, fresh from a 7th place at Transvulcania is just one of the competitors who loves skyrunning and island-hopping. She comments, “This place is incredible. The diversity of nature, the amount of vertical that you get immediately from the sea is breath-taking. The colour of the water is like nothing I have ever seen. I have stopped so many times to say “wow”! The organisers and community runners have made me feel at home already. I don’t want to ever leave…”
She will be joined by Americans Hillary Allen who is looking strong after her 5th place in Transvulcania and Kristina Pattison who is now fit and fired up to compete in Madeira after a recent illness.
Strong competition will come from Spaniards Gemma Arenas (6th) and Anna Comet, third overall last year.
Cristofer Clemente from Spain, second on the 2015 Ultra ranking and in last year’s race, is among the men’s favourites with new-entry Remigio Huaman from Peru who finished 7th at Transvulcania. The line-up includes Philipp Reiter from Germany, Jan Bartas from the Czech Republic and Dimitrios Theodorakakos from Greece as well as competitors from Japan Skyrunning. Nuno Silva and Ester Alves, 2015 Portugal National Champions, will no doubt perform well on home ground after placing respectively 3rd and 2nd last year.
Notable absentees due to injury include Mira Rai with a stress fracture and Paul Hamilton who will sadly miss the whole season.
The Madeira Ultra SkyMarathon®, now in its third year, perfectly embodies the skyrunning sea-to sky concept with some very technical stretches up to Grade II, and a via ferrata section just below the island’s highest point at 1,861m altitude. Set in a UNESCO World Heritage site, Madeira boasts extraordinary biodiversity and geodiversity resources as well as the wine the island is renowned for.
João Canning Clode, USM co-director and PR comments, “We’re really excited to host the Ultra SkyMarathon Madeira next weekend. The course is simply breath-taking but very technical. We’ll have more than 1,000 runners from 25 nations distributed over the three races. We have an excellent line-up of elite runners and expect a very competitive race. Santana is definitely ready for the Skyrunner® World Series.”
The records to beat? Ricky Lightfoot 6h09’56”. Stevie Kremer 7h33’37” .
Anticipation mounts for Saturday’s race where the top runners can be followed with our new live tracking system.
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