ROUND 2 - MILLET SKI TOURING COURCHEVEL - Wednesday 28 December 2016

2nd round of the Millet Ski Touring Courchevel for Corinne Favre and Benjamin Chamoux.

Ski touring is a sport that is on the rise in every sense of the word, as the number of participants in the “Millet Ski Touring Courchevel” exploding week after week proves. 156 ski mountaineers were there this Wednesday 28 December for this 2nd round, which was again held on the fallback course. Guillaume Prin, president of the organising club Courchevel Sports Outdoor Montagne et Escalade, expressed his amazement: “It’s impressive how the number of people coming every Wednesday increases year after year, especially as we are currently obliged to use the fallback course because of the lack of snow on the official route. We already have a huge crowd and we’re only on the fallback. What will it be like when we open the official course?”

It should be noted that this 2.4 km course with 500 m of elevation gain, located on the heights of Courchevel, is well suited, with a magnificent view of the lights of the resort and surrounding villages and a majestic finish at the top of La Loze, where the “Plum KV Courchevel” finish usually takes place. On this course, used over the last two years to cope with difficult early-winter snow conditions, many competitors were able to come and enjoy it and set a reference time: a good leg-loosener before the next snowfalls. While Mathéo Jacquemoud still holds the men’s record on this course since last year in 19min28s, among the women Corinne Favre keeps knocking down the time. After taking the record last week, she went even faster this Wednesday 28 December to finish in 25min42s. Adèle Milloz of the Tignes sports club hung on well and finished second in 26min35s ahead of Elisa Gayet of Pyrénées Catalanes ski alpinisme in 27min02s.

Among the men, a fine performance by Benjamin Chamoux of the Plum team, winner of this time trial in 22min17 ahead of Julien Poquet (22min35s) and Florian Sautel in (22min54s).

In the ESF Challenge, it was the second podium of the evening for Florian Sautel of ESF Valmorel, who won in 22min54s. Among the women instructors, Célia Perillat-Pessey of ESF La Clusaz won in 28min42s.

Note the fine performances of the youngest participant of the evening, Lilian Guyon, born in 2007, who finished in 56min12s, of Pascal De Thiersant, chairman of the management board of the Société des 3 Vallées, who finished in 33min23s, and of Dmitry Orlov (34min06s), a loyal Russian participant who comes every year.

We will have to wait a little longer for the Plum KV Courchevel 2017.

The first round of the Vertical Kilometre (KV) Plum KV Courchevel (PKVC) was due to be held this Friday 30 December, but given the lack of snow on the course, the event will be postponed to Friday 3 February. The first round will take place on Friday 20 January, followed by 3 more rounds on 3 and 17 February and 17 March.