towerrunning

JUL

7

It is the beginning of July and the first half of the year with almost 80 races considered for our Tower Running World Cup 2010 is over. Compared to last year there were more problems with the result lists - not just missing nationalities, even the timing chips though proved over years didn´t always work well. At halftime there is a more comprehensive ranking including all athletes having achieved at least 30 World Cup points since the beginning of the year - here it is! Should anyone notice a mistake - please object. Despite all efforts especially the nationality assignment is not always easy and we want to have a ranking as correct as possible !

At the beginning of the year encouraged by interesting contacts we have announced possible prize money - unfortunately some promises have not been fulfilled and there will be no cash prices in 2010.

JUN

30

Contest

It´s still time to participate ! The deadline has been extended til July 31. The prizes are three one year abos of Runner´s World ( edition depending on winners ) which will be drawn among all correct solutions. The winners will be notified per mail and named here during the first August days !

JUN

19

Finally Austria´s highest building can be climbed too !. Initiated by Norbert Lechner the first Millenium Tower Run set a new record for stair races held within a building. The 843 stairs had to be climbed three times - the order of depart in the second and third climb was decided by the intermediate result.
In the Lady´s race Marie-Fee Breyer (GER) was dominant and finally two minutes faster than the runner up. Julia Evangelist (AUT). More drama in the male race: In the first heat Enrico Gäbe (GER) took the lead but was passed by Rolf Majcen (AUT) in the second run who was able to extend his lead in the final run. Very tight the fight for position three, after 2529 stairs Norbert Lechner (AUT) was just 2 seconds faster than Daniel Ackermann (SUI) !

Winners

JUN

4

The intense last May week with three Masters-Races caused some changes in the ranking.

With his points from Berlin and Taipeh Javier Santiago defended the World Cup lead. With his 3rd place in Taipei Thomas Dold passed Jesse Berg. Strong rising the winners: Frankfurt - Matthias Jahn from 10 to 5, Dubai - Tomasz Klisz from 26 to 8 und Taipei - Marco deGasperi from 60 to 13 !
In the Ladies´ranking Melissa Moon stormed the top. Interesting a narrow situation at the runner up position, Sandra Nunez just 4 points before Daniela Vassalli and not far behind too Marie-Fee Breyer and Cindy Harris !

An interesting statistical fact is that now the Top10 male athletes are from 7 different countries and the Top20 from 10 countries ! The respective figures for the women are 5 (Top10) and 8 (Top20) !

MAY

30

As used Race director Michael Lederer organized a high-class event with the 4th SkyRun MesseTurm Frankfurt for ARQUE where sports and charity complemented each other. A heavy rain storm just before the start could not interfere with the good humor of the athletes who had to run on a blue carpet into the triangular staircase and then up to the 61st floor.

The victory for the 3rd time went to Matthias Jahn from the near Fulda, in 5-second intervals followed by Viktor Novotny (CZE) and Tomas Celko (SVK). These three stayed under seven minutes. Places 4 til 6 were occupied by Paul Kipkorir of Kenya and the two Germans Jan Wilker and Christian Riedl. Remarkably the 7th rank of Tomasz Klisz just two days after his victory in Dubai, 8th with Pavel Holec was another Czech athlete.

Fastest lady leading a German quadruple victory was like a week before in Berlin newcomer Anna Hahner beating Annette Hartmann, previous winner Marie-Fee Breyer and Anna's twin sister Lisa Hahner. Fifth Veronika Cheboi from Kenya followed by Julia Evangelist from Austria.

MAY

30

28

Surprising results at the 6th Taipei 101 Run Up. In a tight race Marco de Gasperi from Italy won. Second place world mounrtain running dominator Johnatan Wyatt (NZL) in his first stair race since 2002. And just a disappointing third place for favourite Thomas Dold . In the Lady´s race Melissa Moon continued her successful comeback on the stairs.

European double victory in Dubai. Climbing the Emirates Tower Tomasz Klisz from Poland dfeated Austrian Rolf Majcen. Third place went to last year´s runner up Tony Clarkson - fastest Lady Jo Phillimore.

MAY

25

15

At the 5th SkyRun Berlin from the Alexanderplatz up to the Skydeck of the Park Inn Hotel Thomas Dold won for the 5th time beating Viktor Novotny (CZE) and Ignacio Cardona (ESP). These three climbed under 4 minutes. A bit surprising fastest Lady in 4:30 was cross-Country hope Anna Hahner (GER).

Sometimes a Masters athlet beats the young ones - Mark Trahanovsky (51) did so in Little Rock !
Wafiya Benali (MAR) and Ignacio Cardona win at the Subida Gran Hotel Bali in Benidorm.
At Augsburg´s Hochhauslauf home Backward Running World Champion Roland Wegner is the fastest - going forward !

MAY

5

May - lots of high class events all over the world and a chance to win not only for the runners but for fans of our sport too.
Take part in our contest and win one year abos of Runner´s World ( edition depending on winners ).
Good luck !

MAY

5

Registration for the Taipei 101 Run Up 2010 is now open l

Date correction for the first race of the Czech Run Up Series:
Ostrava JUN 3 - Zlin JUN 18 - Liberec SEP 9 - Olomouc SEP 17 - Praha SEP 24. At the final ( Praha SEP 26 ) you can win a car !

The premiere of the Spinnaker Tower Challenge in Portsmouth - planned for May 13 - had to be postponed - new date is October 14 !

Far ahead: The next Wolkenkratzerfestival in Frankfurt/Main will be held on May 25-26 2013 !

APR

13

The Taipei 101 Run Up 2010 will be on May 30 - registration will open at the end of April.
Unfortunately this is on the same day as the SkyRun MesseTurm Frankfurt.

The dates of the Czech Run Up Series are fixed:
Ostrava JUN 8 - Zlin JUN 18 - Liberec SEP 9 - Olomouc SEP 17 - Praha SEP 24

A special event for stairsprinters will be on May 15 in Augsburg (GER).

APR

13

Soon at Towerrunning:
Contest with questions about our sport - prices one year abos of Runner´s World ( edition depending on winners )
Newsletter

MAR

28

The first quarter of the Towerrunning World Cup ended with an exciting duel between Javier Santiago and Jesse Berg.taking turns in the lead for the past five weeks. The surprising thing this week is that Jesse winning the Presidential Towers climb in Chicago and so increasing his score from 576 to 616 points was passed in the ranking by the runner up Javier whose score climbed from 560 to 628 points. And this is the explanation: According to the rules just 5 races with factors 0,5 or 1 are considered. In his 5th race of that kind Javier earned the full 68 points. On the other side it was Jesse´s 6th so he couldn't get full points for his victory. Next fastest at the four towers were Eric Leninger, Henry Wigglesworth and the fastest Lady Therese Houlahan.

San Francisco this weekend saw another good climbing competition; Mark Dolan winner like last year and Kourtney Dexter clocking a new course record - unfortunately some problems with timing chips like last week ...

As the KL Towerthon could not be evaluated a change in the "Masters-Races" was necessary - here you can see see the adapted table.

MAR

21

No home win on World Forest Day at the International Towerthon Challenge up Kuala Lumpur´s Menara Tower. For the second time Philip Kipkemei Rono from Kenya won, runners up Ahmidalam Channak ( MAL ) and Anthony Kosgei Cheptoo (KEN). The fastest Lady was from Thailand - Naiyana Rakkaphan won beating Malaysians Noor Amelia BT Musa and Jutharat Inwichian. Unfortunately so far no complete result is available for us - probably the race cannot be evaluated for the World Cup.
Lots of Action in the US last weekend. Drama at the 24th Big Climb in Seattle: Jesse Berg´s chip failed. After post race analysis he was ranked second to last year´s winner Shaun Stevens Whale (CAN). Nevertheless Jesse regained the World Cup lead from Javier Santiago ! The female race went to Kourtney Dexter - her third win in a row in Seattle. Due to an (Olympic) date collision Shaun Stevens Whale could not defend his second title won last year at Vancouver´s "Climb the Wall". Eric Leninger dominated in Milwaukee und is now 5th in the World Cup. Some other climbers risings in the ranking this weekend were Chad Kreiley with his Tampa win and from the Philadelphia race David Tromp, Chris Solarz and Briana Wight to name a few.

MAR

The Scale the Strat - a two day event - was held for the second time in Las Vegas.
On the impressive Stratosphere Tower Javier Santiago was by far the fastest climber - his 7:26,04 are a new course record. This victory also means for him to take back the World Cup lead from Jesse Berg. On the places the Crossman twins and Michael Schramm.
Fastest Lady in the sunday final for the fastest from the saturday qualification climb was like last year Courtney Swenson - for the second time she was the only female climber doing it sub10 ! Runner up like last year Erica Schramm.

MAR

5

World Cup lead changes:
For the first time a Mexican runner climbs to the top - Javier Santiago with a narrow lead over Jesse Berg. They are followed ba two Europeans - Thomas Dold and Tomas Celko.
Another narrow thing is the Lady´s ranking with Cindy Harris taking over from Melissa Moon. Number three and best European runner Daniela Vassalli.
Business as usual in the Nations Cup with USA leading Germany and Italy.

Unfortunately the result of Vertical Rush cannot be evaluated for the World Cup ranking as one week after the race despite consultations with timing company and event organisations there is still gendermix in the official result - sorry especially for Anna Frost and Rachael Orr.
According to the rules the race in Prague will be upgraded to Masters-Race with factor 1,5 .

FEB

28

27

25

That was an intense weekend with 12 stair races in the United States !

Most well known the "Hustle up the Hancock" ( picture ) in the world stairing capital of Chicago, for the 8th time there Terry Purcell was the champion, followed by Christopher Schmidt and Javier Santiago. Fastest Lady once again Cindy Harris - No. 10 for her at the Hustle.
At the Climb to the Top in New York's Rockefeller Center the winner was Rolf Majcen from Austria with new course record beating Chris Solarz. Chris was not satisfied with this and some hours later was the fastest in Philadelphia. As a warm up he had won the climb in Providence the day before too !
Remarkably at the Fight for Air Climb in Des Moines overall fastest climber was a Lady - Lisa Vetterlein !
And in Salt Lake City three climbers did it 30 times - wow !
Rather disappointing after the promising premiere last year was the 2nd Vertical Rush in London. Steve Winder and Dan Crow were the only sub 5 climbers, the best performance of the day was undisputedly by New Zealand´s Anna . A strong second place was reached by Rachael Orr from the organizing company´s staff !

FEB
20

An interesting saturday wirh five US races all located somewhere in the middle of the States. In his home town Albuquerque Jose Camacho had not only the honor to open the race but was the fastest racer too - at age 56 many young athletes looked old compared to him ! Jose is a climber for many years and one of the few Americans who already competed on another continent.
Another double home win at the ALA climb up the Springfield Hilton ( picture ). Terry Purcell who also helped in organizing this event and his wife Susan tokk the titles at this race - a family affair !

FEB 13

Some surprising results and two new course records at the 7th Towerrunning at the Messeturm in Basel. Young Marie-Free Breyer had a comfortable win over Daniela Vassalli and Anette Hartmann.Fastest of the day was Tomas Celko beating Jan Wilker from Berlin.Last years winner and favourite Gabriel Lombriser had to be satisfied with a third place.

Marie-Fee Breyer	GER	3:26,6	1	Tomas Celko	SVK	2:37,3
Daniela Vassalli	ITA	3:33,1	2	Jan Wilker	GER	2:40,7
Anette Hartmann	SUI	3:36,7	3	Gabriel Lombriser	SUI	2:41,9
Maya Chollet	SUI	3:42,4	4	Fabio Ruga	ITA	2:43,6
Katjana Schriber	SUI	3:54,8	5	Christian Riedl	GER	2:48,9
Christina Bätscher	SUI	3:58,7	6	Pavel Holec	CZE	2:49,2
Cristina Bonacina	ITA	4:00.5	7	Kevin Kiy	GER	2:50,6

FEB 2

For the 33rd time Athletes from all over the world came to New York to participate in the most famous of them all - the Empire State Building Run Up. Thomas Dold (GER) did it again. With his 5th consecutive win he now is on a level with ESB legends Paul Crake and Al Waquie. Runner up another German, Matthias Jahn followed by Matthew Byrne from Philadelphia. First Lady on the top was Melissa Moon (NZL) celebrating her return to the stairs with a glorious victory. Two US climbers followed her, newcomer Gretchen Grindle Hurlbutt and the experienced Amy Fredericks. Both champions had easy wins with an exactly 40 second lead ! The US climbers have to wait for another year, Cindy Moll-Harris 2003 and Terry Purcell 1998 are still the last home winners. (Picture:Wikipedia)

FEB 1

Jesse Berg takes the World Cup lead after finishing runner up to Eric Leninger at the 13th Step Up for Kids in Chicago ( AON Center ). Third place goes to Mexican Javier Santiago, fastest Lady is Lindsay Smith. (Picture:Wikipedia)

Short News:

There will be no RUN2SKY Europe - Series in 2010 !

In spite of other published dates the International Towerthon in Kuala Lumpur will be on March 21.