EVEREST TRAIL RACE
Hernando’s Victory Reinforces Leadership At Everest Trail Race
Press Release / 13.11.2017
The World and European champion won a second consecutive victory with a record time in the premier stage of the race, while Portuguese racer Ester Alves also won and maintains her first place position overall.
The 24km today were wild and very hard. The second stage of the Everest Trail Race by The Elements Pure Coconut Water was the highlight of the day. The athletes climbed above 3,500m with hardly a flat meter underfoot and stepped onto the roof of the race, the top Pikey Peak at 4,100m altitude.
After leaving Jase Bhajyang the participants had to tackle a 600m downhill drop to the valley to reach one of the lowest points of the race at 1,500m altitude. After crossing the river a brutal climb of 16km without respite began with 2.600m+ to reach the top of the Pikey Peak.
Luis Alberto Hernando (Adidas) and Ester Alves (The Elements Pure Coconut Water) passed through all the control points extending the time difference over their main rivals.
Hernando has also set a record for the second consecutive day with a time of 3.35 for the stage. He was almost 10 minutes faster than the 2013 record set by Upendra Sunuwar. After crowning the top of Pikey Peak with beautiful views of the Himalayan 8000's, came a technical high altitude descent which was not for the faint hearted.
After Hernando, the Nepali runner Suman Kulung came in second place 15 minutes later and the Norwegian athlete Sondre Amdahl came in third. The runner from Burgos wanted to achieve the widest possible gap over the local athlete because the third stage has 4,110m of descent.
“Kulung descends very well and is characterized by being very technical and fast so I wanted to get ahead," explained Hernando, who was already in the camp after a day of good weather.
This was different from the very cold night that is expected in the tents for runners and organisers. The last data coming from the camp is three degrees below zero ... and dropping.
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