Monday, July 6, 2009

Jono smashes Zermatt Marathon course record


Architect, 5-time world mountain running champion and 7-time winner of the world mountain running grand prix series Jonathan "Jono" Wyatt of New Zealand won the 8th Zermatt Marathon in Switzerland on Saturday with a new course record 2:57:47. He was the first to break 3 hours in Zermatt.

As usual, Jono has been in excellent form this year, for example winning the LGT Alpin and Graubünden marathons in June.

Although known as a mountain race specialist, the Kiwi has never been slow on flat land either: he boasts a 2:13:00 PR for a road marathon, 1:02:37 for a half marathon, 27:56 for 10,000 and 13:27 for 5,000 meters.

The second place finisher, Anssi Raittila of Finland, lost 18 minutes. The full results are here.



My photos are from last year's race. It took me 6:01 then - my slowest marathon ever. The course is steep - and then even steeper near finish - uphill, and the weather is always sunny and hot. The famous mountain peak shown is Matterhorn, but the race doesn't climb anywhere near there - and I'm cool with that decision.

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