Round 6 - DYNAFIT SKI TOURING COURCHEVEL - 16 January 2013

The 6th Dynafit Ski Touring Courchevel goes to Florent Perrier and Melanie Bernier.

This Wednesday 16 January, despite a beautiful clear sky, the cold was present for the 62 ski mountaineers entered in the 6th round of the Dynafit Ski Touring Courchevel. The -15° shown at the finish area did not scare the competitors, still less the Canadian national ski mountaineering team, used to the great cold of their country, who came to take part in this race held every Wednesday of the winter until 27 March over a vertical race course of 3.2 km and 500 m elevation gain.

Proof of that is Canadian Melanie Bernier of the Alpine Club of Canada, who won among the women in 31min23s ahead of Catherine Juillaguet of Club d’Abondance in 31min35s and Stéphanie Duc of the Courchevel Sports Alpinisme club in 32min32s.

Among the men, times are getting sharper as the vertical race event of the French ski mountaineering championships approaches, to be held in Courchevel on 2 February on the same course, for the Arêches Beaufort Multisport club with Florent Perrier , who won this climb in 24min01s ahead of Cyrille Gardet in 24min29s and Yoann Sert in 25min25s. Canadian Reiner Thori finished at the foot of the podium in 25min54s.

While all these specialists fight for the top places, the same is not true for all participants, such as Sarah Castaing of the Courchevel tourist office, who improved her time by 8min since her first participation on 19 December, finishing this time in 1h00min43s. Her next goal is to go under the one-hour mark before perhaps going to challenge the records still provisionally held by William Bon Mardion in 23min02s and Corinne Favre in 29min56s.