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- letto 1556 volte
- Italiano
At 5 a.m on Saturday, the XXIII Mezzalama Trophy race will start off from Breuil-Cervinia. Adriano Favre: «The course is all ready and has been clearly marked». At 8.30 a.m., the Mezzalama Jeunes race will start off from Gabiet (Gressoney La-Trinité). The Mezzalama Trophy will also decree the winners of the La Grande Course circuit. Live streaming from 8.15 a.m. is confirmed. Discounted ski-lift tickets available.
The XXIII edition of the Mezzalama Trophy is about to kick off: on Saturday morning at 5.30 a.m., 208 3-man teams will start off from Breuil-Cervinia. The finish line of the "Glacier Marathon" will be in Gressoney-La-Trinité and, to reach it, competitors will have to cover a 45-kilometer route with a total elevation gain of 3272 meters, and tackle three four thousanders: the Castor peak (4126 m), the Naso dei Lyskamm and the Roccia della Scoperta-Rock of Discovery (4177 m).
Adriano Favre and the mountain guides responsible for preparing the route have worked immensely hard over the last few days. «The course is ready – the technical director told us – and today we managed to prepare all the most difficult parts. The 20 cm of snow we had the other day helped enormously to give the glacier a more wintry appearance. Between Thursday and Friday, we expect more snow and we are therefore confident that the original course won’t need to be altered. So we are able to confirm that the traditional route that goes up to the Quintino Sella Hut will be followed.
Preparing and securing the trail was a huge and extremely demanding job, but the guides engaged in doing it are tough and tenacious and have given us a really excellent race course. My advice to competitors is that they observe all the rules ‘of engagement’ that are communicated during the briefing and applied throughout the race. Conditions at high altitude are precarious and it is essential that that they strictly adhere to all the instructions they’ve been given in order to ensure that the event takes place in total safety».
The Mezzalama Jeunes race, reserved for the U16, U18 and U20 youth categories, will start off at 8.30 a.m. in the Gabiet area. The race will follow a route designed by mountain guides François Cazzanelli and Emirk Favre that will take competitors up to the Orestes Hütte refuge, the Colle della Salza and the Canalino dell’Aquila-Eagle Couloir. The finish line will be right under the Mezzalama trophy banner in Gressoney La Trinité: a chance for future skimo champions to experience the thrill of crossing the finish line like a real ‘mezzalamista’.
The Mezzalama Trophy will also assign the final points that decree the 2022-2023 winners of the prestigious La Grande Course circuit in both the men’s and women’s categories. Leading the provisional classification of the circuit by 732 points is an athlete from the Army Sports Center, Matteo Eydallin. Behind him, both with 686 points, are Martin Stofner and Filippo Beccari. In the women’s category, the French champion Axelle Gachet Mollaret shares first place with her compatriot Emily Harrop with 600 points. The Italian athlete, Ilaria Veronese, is presently third with 534 punti.
For this edition, the Mezzalama Trophy Foundation has once again made every effort to ensure that all those skimo enthusiasts who are unable to follow the race on Saturday morning on their skis can enjoy the spectacle on the Monte Rosa glaciers in live streaming. Streaming will begin at 8.15 a.m. and can be viewed on the Mezzalama Trophy social media platforms and on the www.trofeomezzalama.it site. For those lucky enough to be able to enjoy the excitement of the Mezzalama first-hand, the Breuil-Cervinia/Plateau Rosa lift systems will open from 5.00 to 8.00 a.m. The Gabiet/Passo dei Salati/Punta Indren lift systems will open instead at 6.30 a.m. Tickets for using the systems will cost € 10.