The primary race of the season for the Golden Path World Sequence happened in Kobe, Japan on Saturday, and the sector was loaded with expertise. Swiss runner Maude Mathys, the 2020 Golden Path Championship winner and 2021 GTWS winner, took the win within the ladies’s race (2:52:08), after being off for many of 2023 recovering from Achilles surgical procedure; Patrick Kipngeno of Kenya, final yr’s GTWS total runner-up, broke the tape on the lads’s aspect, defying predictions that the course was too technical for him.
Sara Alonso of Spain took second within the ladies’s race (2:58:34), with Theres Leboeuf of Switzerland rounding out the rostrum (2:58:38). Kipngeno handed Switzerland’s Joey Hadorn, who finally completed second, on his solution to break the tape; it was Hadorn’s first podium end in a GTWS race. Elhousine Elazzaoui of Morocco completed third, after taking a tough fall on the third loop.
The win was particularly candy for Mathys, who was uncertain of her health after her surgical procedure final yr; nonetheless she famous that the course was very technical, which prevented the opposite runners from going as quick as they might have preferred.
“My technique was to set off fairly cautiously so I wouldn’t blow up too early, then step by step enhance the tempo within the uphill whereas attempting to not lose an excessive amount of within the downhill,” Mathys instructed media after the occasion. “I feel I’m a horrible downhiller, however I can’t be as unhealthy as all that, as a result of nobody caught up with me! Then I noticed Joyce [Njeru, of Kenya, who finished fourth] within the third loop and I rapidly caught up together with her after which opened up a spot. I attempted to remain centered proper as much as the end line and I’m thrilled with this victory.”
Kipngeno was additionally slightly shocked by his victory: “The competitors was high-level right now, and the race was very robust, however I’m actually joyful to have received,” Kipngeno instructed media after the race. “It wasn’t till kilometre 16 that I noticed that victory was attainable, as a result of the downhills had been very robust, and so they had been operating very quick within the entrance. However I caught to my technique, and it labored!”
The GTWS is an eight-race collection, the place the highest 30 women and men from the general rating, after the eighth race, might be invited to the Grand Remaining, to be held this yr within the Swiss area of Ascona-Locarno. Saturday’s race in Kobe marked the first-ever Asian race within the GTWS, and featured a 21-kilometre course with 2,109 metres of vertical elevation in a “flower-race” format. (Racers ran 4 completely different loops that took them by way of the beginning/end zone 5 occasions–so the course map resembled a flower.) Mathys was third on each the primary and second loops, solely transferring into first on the third loop; equally, Kipngeno was fourth on the primary loop, third on the second and made his solution to the entrance of the pack on the third loop.
Click on right here for full outcomes.
The subsequent race within the collection is in Sichuan, China on April 27.
Click on right here to take a look at all the 2023 season, full with behind-the-scenes footage, in a YouTube collection known as “Chasing Goals.”
