17,000 competitors should have taken part in the 67th edition of SaintéLyon on Saturday.

-

Gilles Reboisson

  • The trail world has experienced an almost white 2020 season because of the Covid-19 health crisis.

  • While the SaintéLyon should have brought together 17,000 runners, Saturday and Sunday,

    20 Minutes

    looks at the morale of this “trail family”.

  • More than the adrenaline rush of competition, most trail runners are driven by their need to escape into nature, even without a bib on their back.

The announcement of negative temperatures, during the night from Saturday to Sunday, should normally shake the 17,000 annual participants of SaintéLyon.

But faced with the health context, the famous night trail race had to cancel its 67th edition, a first in its history.

One more heartbreak for

outdoor

enthusiasts

, at the end of an almost white 2020 season.

9th last year on the 76 km, Yoann Stuck recalls the importance of the event: “When you live in Lyon, you have to do it.

There is a whole story behind the dean and I was still going for it before it was canceled.

I had cut my training at the beginning of October in order to regenerate myself and be fresh for this SaintéLyon ”.

Our dossier on the trail

Like so many other trail runners, Yoann Stuck will have to take his pain patiently, even if he intends to travel it at the start of 2021, with a small group of enthusiasts.

And this in an

off

format

 which has been the great trend of trail running in this season marked by the coronavirus.

Ranked 4th for his first participation in the 76 km queen event in 2019, Lyonnais Baptiste Chassagne (27) is just as disappointed not to be able to fight on muddy trails on Saturday.

"I structure my season according to the SaintéLyon, this is the first date that I check off", he even announces.

"It's more rewarding to complete your own project than a race. You can create the event you want so you necessarily find yourself there."

We are looking at the "off" projects of @francoisdhaene, Xavier Thévenard, Luca Papi ... @ 20Minutes #ultratrail # GR20 https://t.co/u0J6cMbPyM

- Jérémy Laugier (@JeremyLaugier) July 9, 2020

"The last big race of the year in France"

The third in the last French trail championship took advantage of this truncated year to change his habits, going from 10 to 15 hours of training per week on average.

“I was able to set off with greater workloads than in a normal season, in which you have to keep cool before a big race,” explains Baptiste Chassagne.

Alexandre Boucheix, alias Green Cap on social networks, had planned to redo ... the LyonSaintéLyon, namely a terrifying round trip of 154 km (formerly "the 180"), after winning the first edition of this new formula in 2019 "The SaintéLyon is the last big race of the year in France," recalls the 29-year-old Parisian.

The holidays are a bit early: we see the runners' family before reuniting with their own family.

"

Trail: Who are these "extraterrestrials" who are going to link two SaintéLyon in the weekend?

https://t.co/mwx4vb23Oq pic.twitter.com/okwgFtvtqB

- 20 Minutes (@ 20Minutes) December 2, 2016

"Many emotional elevators"

Programmed hyper intense with 16 races planned, mostly ultras (above 80 km), its 2020 season has been reduced to only two events maintained because programmed before the first confinement., This is why Alexandre Boucheix spent the clearest time. of his time between thousands of laps of his "mini-garden", a treadmill and the Bois de Vincennes located next to his home.

Lyonnaise Marion Delespierre, 2nd in the emblematic Diagonale des Fous (165 km) in Reunion Island in October 2019, especially remembers this season "so many disappointments with the many emotional lifts" caused by the cancellations of events in the chain .

Between the absence of long races during most of the season and a busy professional life as a sports doctor, the 33-year-old trail runner has revised her preparation goals.

Before an almost white 2020 season, Marion Delespierre had obtained second place during the formidable Diagonale des Fous, in October 2019 in Reunion.

- Franck Oddoux

"The pleasure of getting away from it all stayed there all year round"

“Rather than going on three-hour weekend rides, or head-on in the evening, I focused on qualitative one-hour sessions,” she explains.

I could see that the pleasure of getting away from it all stayed there all year round.

I run primarily to do myself good and not for the competition.

"

A feeling shared by most high level French trail runners, starting with Cédric Fleureton, winner of the 76 km of SaintéLyon 2019 in less than 6 hours.

His XXL challenge of completing ten of the most famous ultra-endurance events in 2020 was ruined by the Covid-19.

He was only able to take part in the Grande traversée du Jura in March (cross-country skiing) then the Altriman in July (triathlon) in the Pyrenees.

"A return to the origins of our sport"

At 47, he wants to be a philosopher: “I have skimmed a lot of races in my life and competition is not an end for me.

I took the opportunity to paddle, rowing… You always have to be positive ”.

A credo shared by Yoann Stuck.

Yoann Stuck sometimes had a long time during this strange trail season in 2020. - Delphine2lyon

"Between the

home trainer

and redundant training around my home, it's as if my year 2020 had lasted two years," he says.

Not being able to plan on goals, even at the start of 2021, is necessarily blasé.

But somewhere, this virus has pushed us to go back to the origins of our sport, to be even more linked to nature, well beyond the business side of racing.

»

Born to be wild

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  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus

  • Sport

  • Saint Etienne

  • Lyon

  • Running

  • Trail