The first Saturday in July is traditionally dedicated to the mountain marathon around Lake Traunsee. The 33rd edition of this extreme running challenge took place yesterday.
Organized by the local Friends of Nature groups in Ohlsdorf and Gmunden, the mountaineers tackled the long circuit around Austria’s second largest alpine lake. On a (now newly measured) route length of 63 kilometers, 4500 meters of altitude around the Traunsee had to be mastered. As always, the route went from Gmundner Rathausplatz via Grünberg, Traunstein, Spitzlsteinalm, Ebensee, Feuerkogel, Hochsteinalm, Grasberg and Gmundnerberg back to the starting point.
The 2022 winner comes from Schörfling am Attersee, runs for LC Sicking and is called Markus Lemp. The 32-year-old won in a sensational time of 7:30 hours. “It fitted really well anyway”, was the first comment of the modest winner at the finish, which could hardly be surpassed in terms of dryness. After the rain on Friday evening and on Saturday night, the wet conditions and the slippery track really slowed things down at the beginning. Later, from the morning onwards, the rising heat was the biggest problem for the mountaineers, not to mention the challenges that such an endurance competition poses to the participants.
The descent from the Traunstein to the Mairalm turned out to be the biggest criterion for the winner, as Markus Lemp himself says. But after that he was able to play to his strengths exactly where others often give up: “I was doing very well on the Daxnersteig up to the Spitzlsteinalm. That’s when the first thought occurred to me: If things keep going like this, nobody will catch up with me.”
The legendary full distance was completed with the now just as traditional two partial competitions: At five in the morning the mountaineers tackled the route from Gmunden to Ebensee. At 8.30 a.m. the start for the run from Ebensee to Gmunden took place in the Salinengemeinde. All results in detail at traunsee-bergmarathon.com (hörm./gs)
Source: Nachrichten
