Albertan finishes second in Kyrgyzstan’s inaugural five-day Mountain Ultra
Canada's Michael McLean fought to keep the contest for first place tight in the 200-km race
Photo by:
@beyondtheultimate/MikkelBeisner
Canadian ultrarunner Michael McLean has finished second in the inaugural Mountain Ultra, a brutal five-day, 200-kilometre race in the landlocked Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.
McLean, who is originally from Barrhead, Alta., and now lives in Phuket, Thailand, proved to be a fierce competitor against winner Jon Shield, finishing alongside the Briton in four of the race’s five stages. A strong push from Shield in the final stage secured the victory, however, as he crossed the finish line on Saturday in 34 hours and 13 minutes, beating McLean by 33 minutes.
Sharing third place were Denmark’s Kristina Madsen—the sole female runner to place in the overall top 10—and Karl Alvarez of Gibraltar, who crossed the finish line in 40 hours and 36 minutes.
McLean offered his congratulations to Shield in a message posted to Instagram on Monday. “And just like that the @beyondtheultimate Mountain Ultra is done but not before pushing my body and mind through 200km of mountains with 11 400m of vertical gain, all at between 2500m and 4000m above sea level,” he wrote. “What an epic place and epic race!”
In 2020, McLean celebrated a commanding victory at the Doi Inthanon Thailand by UTMB, after he completed he 119-km race in 19:00:08, more than three hours ahead of the next finisher.
The Mountain Ultra is the fourth and final race within the BTU Global Race Series, taking place in Kyrgyzstan’s Tian Shan Mountains, which stretch more than 2,500 km from Uzbekistan in the west to China in the east. As a self-sufficient race, runners are responsible for carrying all the gear they need to get through each stage, including all food, safety equipment, medical supplies and a minimum of two litres of water. The stages are 32 km, 33 km, 28 km, 55 km and 55 km.
The BTU Global Race Series also includes the Ice Ultra set in the Arctic Circle, the Jungle Ultra set in the Amazon Rainforest and the Desert Ultra set in the Namib Desert.
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