Hannes Namberger and Sunmaya Budha set course records at the Lavaredo 120K
Namberger broke away on the last descent to Cortina for 11:45:31; Budha caught Lucy Bartholomew near Croda da Lago and won in 13:33:18.
Photograph: runners on the climb to Rifugio Auronzo during the 2021 Lavaredo Ultra Trail, by Anthospace, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsThe Lavaredo 120K started at 11 on Friday night from Corso Italia in Cortina d'Ampezzo, 120 km and 5,800 m of climbing through the Dolomites. Hannes Namberger of Germany won it on Saturday in 11:45:31, a course record, more than four minutes under the mark Ben Dhiman set last year. Namberger, Andreas Reiterer and Tobias Geiser ran together at the front for most of the night and morning; Namberger went on the final descent into Cortina, and the two South Tyroleans came in hand in hand for a shared second in 11:55:26. Peter Frano of Slovakia was fourth in 12:32:57.
Sunmaya Budha won the women's race in 13:33:18, also a course record and the first Nepalese win in the race. Lucy Bartholomew of Australia led for hours. After Passo Giau, Budha closed, caught her near Rifugio Croda da Lago and pulled away for the last stretch; Bartholomew was second in 13:34:59, a minute and 41 seconds down. Ireland's Emma Stuart was third in 14:47:42.
It was the 19th edition, with five races from Wednesday to Saturday, 6,000 runners from 93 countries and, by the organiser's count, more than 20,000 who tried to get in. In the 80K on Saturday, Bart Przedwojewski of Poland won in 7:40:30 and Elísa Kristinsdóttir of Iceland in 8:59:57. Daniel Pattis set a 50K course record of 4:00:51 on Friday.
Hours of leading through the night and then a Nepalese runner reels you in on the last climb. The Dolomites do not pay out until the end.
Sources: The Pill Outdoor; UTMB Index results; iRunFar.
