Cristofer Clemente wins the Chihuahua by UTMB 118K in the Copper Canyon
The Spaniard ran 13:58:51 over 5,600 metres of climbing. Alexa Romano won the women's race; Rarámuri runners took second in the 118K and won the 93K.
Photograph: Cristofer Clemente at the finish of the 2014 Scafell Pike Marathon, by Paul Dobson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia CommonsThe second Chihuahua by UTMB ran across the Sierra Tarahumara from Thursday to Saturday, and the long races belonged to a Spaniard and an American, with the Rarámuri runners of the canyon right behind them. More than 1,100 runners from 27 countries entered the six distances, 131 of them Rarámuri.
The headline race, the Rarámuri 118K, started at six on Friday morning in the plaza at Cerocahui and climbed 5,600 metres on its way to the finish at Parque Barrancas, on the rim at Divisadero. Cristofer Clemente won it in 13:58:51. Carlos Gutiérrez Quintero, a 22-year-old Rarámuri runner, was second in 14:13:07, 14 minutes down, which earns him a place at UTMB in Chamonix next year. Colombia's Dian Aceros was third in 14:30:26. The course was shortened this year from the 156 kilometres of the first edition.
Alexa Romano of the United States won the women's 118K in 18:11:43, ahead of Angélica Carolina Cabrera Cruz (18:38:30), who had won last year's 94K, and Lucero Abigaith Gómez Espíndola (21:45:07).
The Wériga 93K left Cerocahui with the 118K. José Luis Nieto Salgado of Mexico City won the men's race in 12:37:38 from Canada's Reid Burrows (13:15:04). Jenifer Yáñez Cruz, the 26-year-old Rarámuri runner from Guachochi who finished the CCC in Chamonix this year, won the women's 93K for the second year running in 14:12:34, more than two hours clear of Markéta Brabcová.
Two Rarámuri runners on the long-course podiums, in their own canyon, with Chamonix places to show for it. That is the story the race was built to tell.
Sources: El Diario de Chihuahua; RunMX; El Pueblo; Tiempo.
