The tournament consisted of two heats at Taipei 101 starting with a “sprint” run up to floor 35with 824 stairs climbing 152 maltitude. Only 90 minutes later the decisive “full” run was started covering the classic 2046 stairs with 391 m altitude up to the observation desk.

In the first heat the ranking leaders and prerace favourites already showed their willingness to win this most important race of the 2018 Towerrunning season. Suzy Walsham( AUS) clocked an impressive 4:31 more than 20 seconds faster than Zuzana Krchova (CZE) and half a minute faster than 4 time 101 winner Valentina Belotti (ITA).

Piotr Lobodzinski (POL) needed 3:39 beating Frank Carreno (COL) by 10 seconds. They were followed by two Germans, expected Christian Riedl and surprisingly just 0,28 seconds behind Goerge Heimann.

Suzy showed her superiority again in the second heat with a 13:01 personal best at 101 followed by Valentina (13:15) and Zuzana (13:52). According to the tournament mode at tie points the full race result determined that the silver medal went to Italy and bronze to Czech Republic.On 4th Dominika Wisniewska-Ulfik (POL), 5th Muhua Jian (CHN) coming from 7th after the sprint. Her strong performance in the full race and another tie points decision displaced Cindy Harris (USA) to 6th at her 101 debut after more than 20 years as extra elite stair racer.

Piotr too was fastest in the full raceclocking a 11:11 and beating Christian by 4 seconds. this secured gold for Piotr and silver for Christian.Three athletes followed within 100 seconds. With 11:48 Ryoji Watanabe (JPN) jumped from 6th to 4th, Frank Carreno settled his bronze, whereas Mark Bourne (AUS) had to be content with 5th place. With a sub12 Jakob Mayr (AUT) was sixfastest in the full race followed by Emanuele Manzi (ITA), but the 6th in the World Championship tournament went to Goerge
. It is fascinating that both World Championship 6th places were taken by athletes marked 50+ in the Towerrunning Ranking !

Thanks to the 101 team with the credit of having organized now 14 times the Taipei 101 Run Up with a few thousand participants every year at this iconic venue we had an exciting Championship tournament. The TWA says “Thank You” too to 85 participants from 26countries !
The internationality of highest level Towerrunning is documented too by some statistic trivia
6 different nations won the medals, athletes from 9 countries were in Top6 and from 14 countries in Top 10. Only the winner nations Australia and Poland were represented three times in the Top10.

Congratulations to the old and new World Champion Piotr Lobodzinski from Poland and to an emotional milestone in the extraordinary career of Suzy Walsham
The Australian athlete crowned herself World Champion in her 100th stair race having started 2006 in her living place Singapore !