Kilian Jornet finished second today in the individual race of the European Ski Mountaineering Championship held in Switzerland. Jornet crossed the line with a time of 1h25, 28 seconds behind the winner, Italian Michele Boscacci (1h24’31’’) and ahead of Anton Palzer (1h25’27’’).

The Ski Mountaineering European Championships, a biennial competition, will consist of two events this year: an individual race, which took place this morning, and a sprint race, to be held on Sunday. In today’s individual race, skiers raced along 12,7 km and 1,620m of climb. Strength, technical expertise and precision when changing materials became paramount and podium positions were adjudged by just few seconds, as it is often the case. Fresh snow and bright sunshine featured in this edition of the European Championship held in Les Marécottes, which host athletes from 23 countries.

Today’s race was highly contested. Leadership passed from one skier to another, but with minimal differences among them. Boscacci, Palzer and Jornet were at each other’s heels throughout the race, along with French Mathéo Jacquemoud and Xavier Gachet at first, who have finally been left behind and could not fight for medal positions. In the last descent, Jornet and Boscacci were skiing very close together, and it was the Italian who  finally defeated Jornet, who had won the first two races of the World Cup. In the end, gold medal for the Italian and silver medal for Kilian Jornet, who explained: “It was a hard battle today and this is what I love about this sport. In the second uphill Mathéo and I were ahead but took a trace that was a bit icy and Michele took the lead. I got closer to him but on the last uphill I’ve seen that I couldn’t overtake him, so I decided to take it easy on the last downhill and don’t take risks. I’m very happy for this position and especially for Michele’s victory, who deserves it after being second in the two last races, especially in Italy where we arrived together”

Kilian Jornet will take part in the vertical race race tomorrow, which scores towards the World Cup  despite not being part of the European Championships.

Foto: ISMF Press Office