RACE REPORT: MAITE MAIORA, SKYRUNNING ULTRA WORLD CHAMPION

Delayed for a year due to the pandemic, the ISF International Skyrunning Federation Skyrunning World Championships took place at the BUFF Mountain Festival - Epic Trail in Vall de Boí, Spain, on the 9th-11th July 2021. Raidlight athlete, Maite Maiora Elizondo took on the Ultra (68km/+4900m elevation) and crossed the finish line 1st in a fine style becoming World Champion!
Maite tells her story. “To summarise nine and a half hours in a few words is very difficult. I would start with the finish, the title, what it means to me to win an important championship again, I won in 2016, it has been a while, and it's not easy to be back in form at the right time and place, everything has to flow, and the stars have to align for this to happen. To feel again what I felt years ago, to set myself demanding goals, to walk the path to achieve them and make them possible, because I was very excited, I trained hard, and things worked out well.” Things could have gone wrong even before the start, because three of the Spanish team entered the start area when they should not have and were each given a 3-minute penalty, luckily it did not change the result but added some spice to the finish. In Maite's words, "I must have put on a thousand bibs in my life, and I had never been penalised, I got disoriented, I was told off by a referee at the finish line, and rightly so".