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Top five women–and Jornet–break records at Comapedrosa

No fewer than five of the fastest women at Skyrace Comapedrosa in Spain–and Kilian Jornet–broke course records yesterday

Kilian Jornet

 

No fewer than five of the top women racers broke the course record at the 21K Skyrace Comapedrosa in Andorra, Spain on Sunday, with Sweden’s Lina El Kott Helander the new record-holder, with a time of 3:03:07.

Second woman was Spain’s Laura Orgué, in 3:06:54, repeating her second-place finish from last year but bettering her time by more than 15 minutes. Third was Sweden’s Sanna El Kott Helander (twin sister to Lina), in 3:11:53, fourth was Spain’s Sheila Avilés in 3:11:55, and fifth was the U.K.’s Holly Page in 3:16:19–all record-breaking times.

It was El Kott’s second win in this season’s Sky Classic series. 

The indefatigable Kilian Jornet not only won for the fourth time on Sunday, but he, too, set a new course record of 2:33:18, only a few months after breaking his leg in a ski-mountaineering race in the French Alps, the Pierra Menta. (The accident happened directly after his recovery from surgery to repair both his shoulders, which were dislocated in a ski accident four years ago, and which had been dislocated multiple times since.)

RELATED: Kilian Jornet wins Hardrock 100 with arm in sling after dislocating shoulder mid-race

In the men’s race, joining Jornet on the podium were second-place finisher Pascal Egli of Switzerland (in 2:36:29) and Petter Engdahl of Sweden, in 2:39:12.

At just 21K, the Comapedrosa is not a long race, but it is a steep one, with 2,280 metres of ascent. And it was a crowded field, with 560 runners representing 23 countries participating. The race is the seventh out of 10 Sky Classic races in the Migu Run Skyrunner World Series.

Jornet’s sponsor, the wearable tech company Suunto, recently released a two-part video that follows Jornet as he struggles to recover from surgery and then the broken fibula, without losing fitness. We see him doing chin-ups, gingerly testing his newly healed shoulders, biking with a cast on his left leg (“I won’t be letting my doctor see this,” he says), and finally throwing the cast into a lake (though with a disclaimer at the end saying the throw was faked, since no self-respecting mountain runner would ever do something so environmentally incorrect). Scenes of Jornet madly training the body parts that work well are interspersed with shots of his beloved mountains. “I’m an outdoor person,” he says, in heavily accented but highly poetic English. “During all this time, my dreams had the shape of the mountains.”

The video is called “Running 30’s,” a reference to Jornet having entered his 30s last year. 

The next race in the Migu Run Skyrunner World Series is the Tromsø SkyRace in Norway this Saturday, August 4.

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