Act 5 - MILLET SKI TOURING COURCHEVEL - Wednesday 10 January 2024

The 200th Millet Ski Touring Courchevel!

This Wednesday 10 January 2024, the 5th climb of the 2024 Millet Ski Touring Courchevel season will go down in the annals. The epic of this ski mountaineering saga, which began on 8 December 2010, celebrated its 200th round and passed the milestone of 22,000 starts with more than 6,000 participants ranked. An enormous satisfaction for Guillaume Prin, president of the organising club Courchevel Sports Outdoor, and his whole team, who have worked for 14 years on this race that has become the international reference in the discipline. This competition is a genuine laboratory for the French Mountain and Climbing Federation, which allows it to analyse the performance indices of national athletes and detect future champions.

The official MSTC course between Courchevel Le Praz and Courchevel 1850, 3.2 km long with 500 m of elevation gain, has hosted the French Vertical Race Championship on 4 occasions (2012, 2013, 2022 and 2024) as well as a World Cup in 2014. Hundreds of world-renowned athletes from all disciplines have come to test themselves on this legendary course, such as Kilian Jornet, François d’Haene, Laetitia Roux to name but a few, not forgetting of course Axelle Gachet Mollaret and Switzerland’s Rémi Bonnet, holders respectively of the event records of 23min54s and 21min20s.

Today, this competition has become the biggest national race in this field in terms of participants and the most popular, with the presence of elites, enthusiasts, amateurs and beginners who, once across the finish line, gather around a good soup to chat and spend a pleasant time together.

This success must be shared with the partner company Millet and more particularly with Jean-Pierre Millet, who took over the brand 2 years ago almost to the day after it left the family fold of the founders Raymond and René Millet. Present at the finish on Wednesday to congratulate the 116 entrants, Jean-Pierre took the opportunity to unveil the “Raymond and René Millet 2024” Crystal Trophies, which will be awarded to the winners of the season, together with prize money of €2,000, at the grand fancy-dress final on 20 March, as a prelude to the exceptional concert by the band Deluxe.

Poland’s Sebastian Druszkiewicz and Géraldine Bau in the spotlight for this 200th climb

The Twelfth Night cakes were very much present to celebrate this historic moment for the MSTC, with many prizes offered to the lucky ones who found the charms.

As for the race, the Queen of the Evening Géraldine Bau, already a winner on 20 December in 34min04s, won by smashing her baseline time (32min24s) ahead of Erika Borg, who put up good resistance in 33min31s. Transalpine Martina Giachino completed the podium in 35min55s, hotly pursued by CSO member Caroline Raineri, 4th in 36min11s.

In the men’s race, after a second place on 20 December in 25min22s, Poland’s former speed skater Sebastian Druszkiewicz, who works at the partner shop Le Camp de Base, took the crown with a time of 25min40s after a fine battle with Robin Cervellin (26min15s) of CS Méribel and Clément Genot (26min25s) of Praz de Lys Sommand Ski Alpinisme.

With 663 starts since the beginning of the season, this 14th edition of the MSTC is on course to set a magnificent participation record. The vintage looks promising, with provisional records already at the top level held by Thibault Anselmet (21min21s) and Emily Harrop (25min25s), but nothing is decided yet.

Next date: Millet Ski Touring Courchevel on Wednesday 17 January 2024