American Jim Walmsley or sacrifice everything to beat Kilian Jornet

• Kilian Jornet interview: "I don't think about my retirement, I can run and be with other things"

• Report https://www.elmundo.es/deportes/mas-deporte/2021/08/26/6124fb3efc6c83273a8b46ac.html

Jim Walmsley

was lost and the world found a myth;

the story is explained in the documentary '

', which deserves to go to YouTube and dedicate 50 minutes to it.

In 2016, Walmsley showed up at the Western States, the most famous 100-mile -161-kilometre- mountain race in the United States, with his finesse, a guy who is 1.82 meters and less than 70 kilos, and a purpose: to beat the record in its very debut.

No one ever trained more: a concatenation of nonsense.

No one ever had so much style.

A few miles into the Walmsley test she was already alone and after many miles she lowered the best record by more than half an hour.

But in one of the last ones, mile 93, he was wrong.

With only 10 kilometers to go he went straight on a left turn and next thing you know he was crying on Highway 49, disoriented, despondent, dehydrated.

He did enough to get back on the course and finish 20th.

That day, Jim Walmsley was lost and the world found a myth.

Since then Walmsley has been the best-known American runner, the

, even more famous after winning the Western States in 2018, 2019 and 2021, almost always with a record.

His problem is that, while Jornet has won in the United States - Western States itself, for example - he has never won in Europe.

In fact, no American has dominated the Mont-Blanc Ultra Trail (UTMB), the most important 170-kilometre race on the continent, which takes place this Friday (from 6:00 p.m., UTMBTV).

And that obsesses him.

The move to France

So much so that last winter he decided to leave everything, his home in the Arizona desert, near the Grand Canyon, and move with his partner, former runner

, to the Alps, very close to the UTMB course.

As an objective, to adapt to running at night in the mountains, to wear a vest with food and drink, to always use poles, in short, to European trail running, colder and uneven than American trail running.

As an objective, to live the season in a different way, training in winter and competing in summer, giving up the Western States, which was held only two months ago.

As a goal, as a very ambitious goal, beat Kilian Jornet, three times winner of the race (2008, 2009 and 2011).

UTMB

"It's quite obvious that Kilian is the great rival. Even if I have my best day he can be better. But I can't control that. What I want is to make a UTMB that I can finally be proud of," says Walmsley, sponsored by Hoka One One, already in Chamonix.

He tried three times before the American to win here in the Alps and crashed all three: he was fifth in his debut, in 2017, and retired on the two subsequent occasions.

His misfortune is that of all the mountain runners in his country who feel inferior compared to Europeans.

"We Americans are hyper-aware that we have never won here. The proximity to the Western may have weighed us down, but UTMB is still a race like any other. We must not mythologize that fact. It will end up breaking the streak";

comments who is called precisely to break it.

Walmsley has always been a pioneer, a discoverer, an adventurer.

Last year he tried to break the world record for the 100 km on asphalt and become the first mountain runner to qualify for the Olympic Games marathon.

He stayed close to both goals, in fact only 11 seconds separated him from the 100 kilometer record, but his experiments helped him to continue improving.

Coming to trail running after a grueling stint in the United States Army Air Forces, where he was reprimanded for driving under the influence of alcohol and expelled after a scandal, the strides, the kilometers, the roads cured him of a severe depression in who came to think of suicide.

After a decade in his sport, of much learning, of sacrificing everything, this Friday, Jim Walmsley will try the impossible in the UTMB: defeat Kilian Jornet.

the other candidates

Despite having recently passed the Covid, Jornet is the favorite to win the UTMB, the most important race in the world, but along with Walmsley there will be other applicants.

The winner of the penultimate edition, held in 2019, the also Spanish

, will be one of them despite the left knee injury that knocked him out last year and there will be more.

Without the French

and

, we have to count on the German

, the Frenchman

or the Spaniard

.

In the female category, the Dutch based in Spain

, the Spanish

or the American

.

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