The “Everest of Skyrunning” has been conquered. Defending champions Finlay Wild of Scotland and Hillary Gerardi of the USA once again crushed the opposition, taking home the titles for a second time in a row with Wild beating the previous course record set by Kilian Jornet by four minutes.
The legendary Trofeo Kima, the 13th race of the 2024 Merrell Skyrunner® World Series – 52 km in distance with 4,200 metres of vertical gain/descent and also known as the Grande Corsa sul Sentiero Roma – was this year “helmet mandatory”.
Wild goes down in history
Finlay Wild (team Green Runners) once again proved he is the best of the best. The Scottish Skyrunner delivered a remarkable performance to claim the men’s title of Trofeo KIMA again, as he did in 2022. After an exciting battle with Jack Kuenzle of the USA, Wild was able to pull away in the final downhill and not only won the race but also set a new course record of 06h05’03″.
Kuenzle, who holds the legendary Bob Graham record amongst other impressive FKTs, arrived at the finish in Val Masino three minutes later in second place followed by local athlete Cristian Minoggio (Altitude Skyrunning Team) in third.
Wild comments: “This is my second time at KIMA. It’s amazing to be back. I’m so happy to get the record this time. In 2022 I tried to get the record and missed it by one minute so I was really trying to go faster to get it. I trained a lot for KIMA. I know the course better this year and I think these all played a role. The race went well. I had to battle hard with Jack and we pushed each other the whole race until I was able to get away in the final downhill.”
Gerardi is the queen of KIMA
In the women’s race American athlete Hillary Gerardi (team Scarpa / Black Diamond), who also won in 2022 and in 2018, put on a masterclass in skyrunning. Gerardi stayed in the top three for the entire race until changing gear in the final downhill and leaving the rest of the women for dust. Gerardi crossed the finish line with a winning time of 7h32’09”, two minutes short of her previous record.
Elise Poncet of France (team Arc’teryx) followed in second, three minutes behind, with her team mate Henriette Albon of Norway closing the podium, eight minutes behind Gerardi.
Gerardi comments: “KIMA is a race I fell in love with when I first came here in 2018. It is the biggest honour for me to come back here and perform again and again. I didn’t pass Elise until the very end. We ran together with Karina and then Elise took off and Karina and I played leap frog. I thought I would never catch Elise until I saw here again and that’s when I knew I had a chance to get to her and win.”
The race closed the weekend of skyrunning. The next race in the series will be the Maga Skymarathon in Italy on the 22nd September.
Full results for KIMA can be found here.
Photo credits: Antton Guaresti
Finish line photos: Mauri Torri
