Comunicato stampa Salomon
KILIAN JORNET IN MALAYSIA READY FOR THE LAST CHALLENGE IN THE SEASON:
MT. KINABALU INTERNATIONAL CLIMBATHON.
This 21km race with a 2300 metre upward slope puts an end to Kilian’s personal challenge: 5 Races 5 Continents, where the Catalan athlete has taken part in the most important race in each continent.
“After my break at Cavalls del Vent, I’m highly motivated and in good physical condition”. “Kinabalu” is a race that I like, but the level will be very high with rivals such as Marco de Gasperi among many others”.
The project began in Australia with his victory in The North Face 100 K, continued with a triumph in Western State 100M in the USA. Then, in Europe he won theUTMB and finally came first in the South African Table Mountains. On the 23rd October Kilian will try to close the circle with an Asian’s victory in Kota Kinabalu.
The Cerdanya athlete comments that, after his forced abandonment in Cavalls delVent due to built-up fatigue, he has been recovering in the last two weeks and feels very motivated facing his last challenge in the season. “In the last weeks, I did a good training. One week I trained for 35 hours and the other 27 hours, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I spent plenty of time in the mountains feeling calm, which what Ineeded. I woke up and went running, with no programme to follow. Once up the summit, if I felt like carrying on running I did but otherwise, I returned home. I trained with friends, ran up the mountains and watched the sun setting. I had the time to enjoy being in the mountains. It made me much good”.
Jornet also comments “I’m in good physical conditions and in a strong mental shape. This is the last race of the season. I’m glad to race Kinabalu, I really enjoy it, and I will strive for a victory.”
Kilian knows it will be hard work to win in Kinabalu. He’ll have to face Marco di Gasperi, with whom he had spectacular neck-to-neck duels all along this season. “C
ompeting against Marc is always a big motivation. He’s not just a good friend but the biggest rival I’ve never met this season. We had good duels in Sierre Zinal, Giir Di Mont and in Vertical Kilometre in Manigood, which I thoroughly enjoyed.”
About the technical side of the race, Killian says “It is a very technical race, with sharp slopes. The rocky part at the top is very slippery as it is usually wet and one must be very careful there. There is an important upward slope of over 2000 meters, which must be done walking. The going down is long and very technical. It takes more than one hour to go down and one mustn’t lose concentration or take one’s eyes off of the floor as there are steps, rocky bits, etc.”
The runners will set off from Kinabalu Park next Sunday 23rd October at 07.00h Malaysian time (23.00 Saturday Spanish time)
Ricky Lightfoot from UK will also take part of the race, and for the female part,Anna Frost from New Zealand will try to repeat the same performance as lastyear to finish on the podium.
