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Tor des Géants 2015 ends in celebration

On Friday 18 September the Tor des Géants, cancelled ahed of schedule due to prohibitive weather conditions, celebrated its winners and all finishers in Courmayeur, Italy. France’s Patrick Bohard and Switzerland’s Denise Zimmermann won the grueling trail running race, ahead of Gianluca Galeati and Lisa Borzani (second) and Marina Plavan and Christophe Le Saux (third).

Planetmountain

September 2015

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Tor des Géants 2015: 2. Gianluca Galeati 1. Patrick Bohard 3. Christophe Le Saux.

Tor des Géants

Friday was a deserved day of rest for the 2015 Tor des Géants finishers who spent the day relaxing and recovering in Courmayeur. At 5pm, the group of athletes gathered paraded through the narrow streets of Courmayeur towards the finishing line. A race finish that had come to symbolize the greatest difficulties, seeing that the prohibitive weather conditions had forced the organizers to cancel the competition ahead a few days ahead of schedule.

After crossing the finish line the athletes continued on to the Dolonne Sport Center where a red carpet had been lain out in the ice rink to host the Awards Ceremony. Awards were given to all category winners and a Finisher T-shirt was given to all Finishers (these, as usual, will be worn proudly until 1 February 2016, when registrations start for the Tor 2016). The Awards ceremony was followed by a surprise buffet, a sort of final pasta party, offered from the race organisers, before the ritual goodbyes to all new friends met during the Tor. Arrancabirra (which celebrates it’s 10th anniversary edition on 10 October, 10/10 in order to celebrate its 10th edition) will be the next time many of them meet again!

Small French giant Patrick Bohard, who finished the Tor in 80h and 20 minutes, took the top podium position, ahead of Italy’s Gianluca Galeati (80h, 44 minutes) and France’s Christophe Le Saux.

The Queen of 2015 Tor was Switzerland’s Denise Zimmermann, followed by the Italians Lisa Borzani and Marina Plavan.

As usual, there was a special podium reserved to Valle d’Aosta athletes: Sara Perin won the women’s category, while the first three men were Giancarlo Annovazzi, Mario Stevenin and Abele Blanc.

Casio Protrek decided to give a special award to Lucio Trucco, the 44-year old Mountain Guide from Cervinia and member of the Mountain Rescue Squad. As a member of the organisation's safety team he dug more than a thousands steps in the snow at Col Loson in order to enable all runners to make it safely up and down from the 3,300 meters Roof of the Tor". He then scattered wood shavings across the path to reduce the danger of people slipping and even assisted athletes in difficulty. "My aim was to help them continue and keep chasing their dream of these Giants" he said. "The hugs and thanks from the runners were my best reward."

TOR DES GEANTS 2015
18/09/2015 - Tor des Géants cancelled
17/09/2015 - Patrick Bohard wins the Tor des Géants 2015
16/09/2015 - Tor des Géants 2015: an uncertain race to the end
14/09/2015 - Tor des Géants 2015: Patrick Bohard and Sonia Locatelli take lead after yesterday's start