A high quality field assembled in Mayrhofen, Austria for the 3rd running of the Saab Harakiri Berlauf.

'Outside of the World Championships this is the strongest mountain running field assembled in 2011' commented Tomo Sarf from Slovenia the World Mountain Running Association technical delegate and observer for this years race.

The men's winner set a new record time in just 50min flat for the 9km and 1170m of altitude gain track.  With representitives from more than 20 countries and in the Mens race 7 different nations in the top 10 while in the Women's race all of the top 10 runners were from different countries!  it was a truly international event.

Salomon Austria had good success in their home Grand Prix race led home by Antonella Confortola.  After her big win from 2 weeks before at the Grossglocknerberglauf (Austria) this was a tighter race but she ran strongly on the steep sections and held an early advantage to win in 1hr02min50s only 25s from Andrea Mayrs record time.  

"I was able to pull away early in the steep forest section but i had to really fight hard when it was not so steep in the middle part where i knew Lucija is strong.  I think I was able to do this today and so I think my speed is improving as I look to the World Championships ini September," commented Confortola

2nd place was also a closely fought contest between Lucija Krkoc (Slovenia) and Lisa Reisinger (German) but the experienced Slovenian sprinted over the final 500m flat and tecnical trail section to bring her the 2nd place,  42s behind Confortola.

The Men's race was a tight affair on the first flat 2.5km section but in the steep climb it quickly broke up into a two person race between Eritrea's Azarya Weldemariam and Turkey's Ahmet Aslan.  The Eritrean though was too strong on the faster sections and pulled away to win.  Aslan fought hard on the final steep section to close the gap which in the end was 23s between the two of them.  

The Eritrean was the silver medalist at last years World Championship in Slovenia so is showing that he has the same form going into this years event in Albania.

A close battle started to emerge high on the slopes of the ski resort for 3rd place where Jonathan Wyatt from Salomon team Austria took on 3 Kenyan runners with Kenyan runner Geoffrey Ndungu eventually taking the third spot followed by Isaac Kosgei 4th and Wyatt in 5th.

Local runners were present in both the mens and womans top10 with Simon Lechleitner and Alex Reider coming in 9th and 10th while young star 17 year old Susanne Mair was 5th in the Women's race.

Salomon team Austria also had strong performances from Thomas Heigl 15th, Markus Kroell 17th and young Martin Mattle 21st place.  57 year old Hans Quehenberger was also highly placed in 39th position.

Current Salomon Running Tour standings will be available later this week.

A sunny day and stunning mountain top scenery made this another great addition to the Grand Prix calander with plans next year underway already to expand the race opening it to more runners who will be able to rub shoulders with the very best in Mountain Running. 

Results:























Full results can be found at:
www.mayrhofen-harakiri.com



- Jw


Note: The video here is from 2010 - but gives you an idea about the track and race and the really specatacular austria scenery.

More info to come soon.

Media release
Contact: Jonathan Wyatt, jonospulse@yahoo.com
or Salomon Austria, Philipp Nenning, Philipp.Nenning@salomon.com