Zak Hanna excels again – this weekend at the Italian Mountain Racing Championships
Three weeks after his brilliant racing weekend in Malonno, Lombardy in Northern Italy, with a 3rd in Piz Tri Vertical Kilometre (Saturday) and a 5th in the Fletta Trail (Sunday), Newcastle & District AC’s (and Dromara’s finest) Zak Hanna made the trip back again to Northern Italy. This time it was for the 32nd Version of the Challenge Stellina in Susa, northwest of Torino (Turin). Along with Sylvain Cachard (France) and Miran Cvet (Slovenia), they were the only non-Italians in the race in this the strangest of years. The race was also the ‘Campionato Italiano Senior di Corsa in Montagna’ or the Italian Mountain Racing Championships.
The font of all knowledge of mountain racing Italian style is ‘corsainmontagna.it’ and their race preview suggested that Cesare Maestri (2nd in the World Mountain Racing Champs) and Francesco Puppi (2nd in the World Long Distance Mountain Racing Champs) would be the ones to beat. Also mentioned were Henri Aymonod (the Italian with a French name), winner of the Piz Tri Vertikal three weeks ago, Alex Baldaccini, winner of the Stellina in 2015 and 2017, the Dematteis twins, Martin and Bernard, former European Champions and Cachard and Hanna.
A two-hour flight on Friday morning, having battled from 3am in the autumnal storm to Dublin, and Hanna landed in Milano Bergamo where the first thing he noticed was that it was sunny and warm. Trains from Milano to Torino and then up the Susa Valley and around 6 hours later he was installed in Susa where it was 29C. With a weekend of unbroken sunshine ahead of him, he reflected on how lucky he was to have a love of the mountains and be able, especially in the middle of this difficult year, to be able to compete like this.
The race itself promised 22C in the shade at start time Sunday – 9:15am. Continue reading →