Round 11 - MILLET SKI TOURING COURCHEVEL - Wednesday 25 February 2015

New record for Corinne Favre and win for Florent Perrier in the 11th round of the Millet Ski Touring Courchevel.

A big crowd this Wednesday 25 February at the start of the 11th round of the Millet Ski Touring Courchevel (MSTC). 177 ski mountaineers set off one after another in a time trial from 6 pm on this Vertical Race course of 3.2 km and 500 m of elevation gain between Le Praz and Courchevel 1850. For the occasion a delegation from the partner company Millet was present. At the prize-giving, Thomas Veillard, Millet’s events manager, presented the 2015 crystal trophy “René and Raymond Millet”, named after the company’s founders, which will be given to the men’s and women’s record holders along with €2,000 in prize money on Wednesday 25 March at the final.

Very fine prize money and shopping voucher awards will be offered this year to the best, and as the final approaches, the race for the record is raging among the specialists of the discipline. Florent Perrier of the Arêches Beaufort Multisports Club won the round in 23min46s and for the moment keeps third place in the provisional overall standings. Next came Jean-François Philipot of CAF La Roche sur Foron in 24min30s and Clément Ripoll of CAF Annecy in 25min58s.

Among the women, Corinne Favre of team Ecrins, leading the overall standings, improved her record once again, lowering it to 28min05s.

Justine Tonso, the revelation of the year!

The next generation is here with the Cadet Justine Tonso of the Montagne Club Vésubien, who took 2nd place in 28min45s (2nd best women’s performance so far). Revealed last year in this competition at Courchevel by finishing 1st Minime, Justine has come a long way since. Selected this year for the French youth team, Justine won 2 gold medals in the Cadet category at the Ski Mountaineering World Championships in early February in Verbier (Switzerland), in the Individual and Vertical Race events. Elsa Nodet completed the podium of this 11th round of the MSTC in 31min15s.

In the ESF challenge, Florimond Gachet of ESF Arêches won in 28min17s and Pauline Caillet of ESF Courchevel 1850 in 38min07s.

Worth noting are the fine performances of Philippe Mugnier, mayor of Courchevel, who came in under 44 minutes, finishing in 43min58s, of Didier Borrel of the Courchevel Technical Services, who finished in 1h20min having taken up ski touring only a few days earlier, and of Axelle Paquelet of the Millet company, who was discovering the joys of climbing skins for the first time, finishing in 1h32min.

For this 11th round, the organisers of “Courchevel Sports Alpinisme” had the pleasure of welcoming a team of TF1 journalists to the race. The report will be broadcast shortly in one of the television news bulletins.