And The Winner Is…
10/07/2020
Over the past few weeks thousands of you have voted for your favourite mountain races in our quest to find your ‘greatest mountain race of all time’. We can now exclusively reveal that the race you chose as your winner is … Smarna Gora!
Smarna Gora in Slovenia proved a highly popular race at all stages of the competition. Its long history, the calibre of runners it has attracted over the years, its welcoming atmosphere and the fact that it remains close to its roots as a pure, unspoilt mountain race all contributed to its popularity. Congratulations Smarna Gora!
So how did we get down to our winner? We started off with 10 long distance races and 12 classic distance races. These were:
Long distance: Mount Fuji Ascent, Sierre Zinal, Three Peaks Race, Kepler Challenge 60k, Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon, Giir Di Mont, Canfranc Canfranc, Jungfrau Marathon, Pikes Peak Marathon, K42 Argentina.
Classic distance: La Montee Grand Ballon, Snowdon International, Hochfelln Berglauf, Smarna Gora, Challenge Stellin, Kitzbuhel Hornlauf, Skala Opp, Drei Zinnen, Mount Washington Road Race, Grossglockner Berglauf, Schlickeralm Lauf, Trofeo Vanoni.
You voted for your favourite races amongst this original list and the most popular 4 from each group went through to the quarter final stage. These were: Sierre Zinal, K42 Argentina, Canfranc Canfranc and Three Peaks Race from the long distance races and Smarna Gora, Mount Washington Road Race, Grossglockner Berglauf and Snowdon International from the classic distance.
The races now went head-to-head and this gave us semi finals of K42 Argentina vs Three Peaks Race and Smarna Gora vs Snowdon. This decided your favourite long distance race, which was K42 Argentina, and your favourite classic race, which was of course Smarna Gora.
So thank you to the thousands of you who voted. We hope that you’ve enjoyed a bit of competition in a year when it’s lacking. We will be bringing you interviews with the K42 Argentina and Smarna Gora race directors in the next few days.