Surprises at Broken Arrow Ascent in the United States

Christian Allen and Anna Gibson handle gale force conditions to win mountain race as Kilian Jornet is 23rd

Broken Arrow tore up the script for this year’s Ascent Race. The eyes of the world were on Kilian Jornet (NNormal) taking on this race from the valley floor to the summit of Washeshu Peak at 2708m, climbing its way up 914m over 4.8km. But the weather system and the men’s field had another plan in mind.

Despite a beautiful blue sky day in Palisades Tahoe, Olympic Valley, there were gale force winds at the summit of Washeshu Peak, so the decision was taken to reroute the race to finish at KT22 at 2,458m. This made it around 3km with approximately 660m of ascent. Would this change play to the advantage of some runners over others?

Despite the changes, the race maintained some steep and technical sections. Starting in its usual place it immediately hit the grass section and then the gradient quickly ramped up. Once they topped out on the grass section and hit the dirt road the climbing didn’t let up, and then came the singletrack, which took them all the way up to ridge and a merciful bit of downhill before hitting the summit. Short and sharp with the runners redlining all the way.

The race

Both the men’s and women’s fields were stacked with US and international athletes. Last year’s women’s winner, Joyce Njeru (NNormal) was on the start line, alongside last year’s runner-up Anna Gibson (Brooks) and third-placed Allie McLaughlin (HOKA). But there was also an incredibly deep US field due to the race acting as the US trial for the World Championships.

Similarly the men’s field had an incredible array of US talent, such as former world champion Joseph Gray (HOKA), Christian Allen (Nike), who we saw with some breakthrough performances in last year’s World Cup, and Olympic Skimo hopeful Cam Smith (Dynafit). In addition there were strong international athletes like Philemon Kiriago (Run2Gether/On) of Kenya and German Lukas Ehrle (ASICS). And obviously Jornet.

The men’s and women’s races started together and it was no surprise to see a small group of men break off the front as they headed up the grass section. It was also no surprise at all to see Jornet and Gray in that group, alongside Allen, Tyler McCandless and David Sinclair once they emerged onto the road section.

For the women there was a clear leader early on and that was Gibson. But she was being chased hard by Njeru, Jade Belzberg (Altra) and…