Day two of the 2025 World Mountain and Path Operating Championships in Canfranc, Spain, introduced the Path World Championships Brief Path.
The 45-kilometer (28 miles) race was on Friday, September 26, with an 8 a.m. CEST begin. The route was alongside the longtime CanfrancCanfranc Marathon course and was a single loop with 3,657 meters (12,000 ft) of climbing. Alongside the way in which, runners took in many of the prior day’s Uphill course, loved 4 main climbs, and endured a wild 122 downhill curves from the Collado de Estiviellas to the end line.
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In line with the entrants lists, some 57 completely different nations have been represented within the girls’s race and 63 nations within the males’s race. The prize purse for each males’s and ladies’s races was 24,000 Euro, with 5,000 Euro going to the winners and money payouts via fifth place.
The skies have been clear, however Tove Alexandersson (Sweden) was lightning! Alexandersson, additionally some of the profitable girls orienteers within the sport’s historical past, completely crushed the ladies’s discipline with a 5:04 profitable time. Alexandersson obtained to the lead half-hour into the race and rolled the remainder of the way in which. It was an extremely spectacular efficiency that noticed her end seventeenth general.
Sweden’s Tove Alexandersson, the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path girls’s champion, descending close to the top of the race. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Males’s winner Frédéric Tranchand (France) separated from the sector on the primary downhill and stayed simply forward of Manuel Merillas (Spain) for the subsequent 3.5 hours. Tranchand, who’s a multiple-time podium finisher on the World Orienteering Championships, gained in 4:42, three minutes higher than Merillas.
Learn on for extra race particulars.
It’s also possible to try extra outcomes from the week’s World Mountain and Path Operating Championships:
Runners line up for the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path race begin in Canfranc, Spain. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
2025 Path World Championships Brief Path Ladies’s Race
The race’s largest climb got here instantly and, sporting pink compression socks, Tereza Hrochová (Czech Republic) attacked it early. After operating on Hrochová’s shoulder, Tove Alexandersson (Sweden) handed her half-hour into the race and gained the lead. The 2 early leaders have been second and eighth on the 2023 World Mountain Operating Championships Up and Down race. Anna Plattner (Austria) was operating in third at this level.
Alexandersson conquered that opening climb and its 6.6-kilometer distance in first with 1:09 elapsed. Plattner overtook Hrochová for second on the climb they usually have been three minutes behind the chief. Caroline Kimutai (Kenya), the 2025 Sierre-Zinal winner, and Sara Alonso (Spain) have been fourth and fifth up. Barely additional again, 2023 Path World Championships Brief Path runner-up Judith Wyder (Switzerland) was amongst a gaggle that suffered a number of wasp stings on the climb. Wyder would later drop from the race because of this. Kimutai additionally dropped early, for unknown causes, and early chief Hrochová completed simply outdoors the highest 20.
Tove Alexandersson of Sweden wins the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path race. Photograph: World Mountain and Path Operating Championships
It was once more Alexandersson within the race lead at 16k Canal Roya and it was stunning how far forward she now was. Alexandersson was there with 1:57 race time elapsed and 11 minutes quicker than anybody else. Barring catastrophe, Alexandersson appeared to have already got the ladies’s win locked up. It was a dynamic chase group behind her, nonetheless. Naomi Lang (Nice Britain) had jumped from eighth on the high of the primary climb to second on the backside. Plattner was third and one other two minutes again, and Alonso was nonetheless fourth. After operating inside the highest 5 early, Kimutai dropped from the race right here.
The second of 4 main climbs adopted. This time it was up Larraca Mountain, mirroring the climb of the prior day’s World Mountain Operating Championships Uphill race. Alexandersson hit the highest in 2:46. The race distance right here was 22k, and Alonso had jumped into second. She was, nonetheless, now 19 minutes behind runaway frontrunner Alexandersson. Lang was pushed to 3rd and Plattner was again to fourth. Jane Maus (U.S.) had climbed, actually, into fifth after the race’s second main climb.
Alexandersson would add to her lead the remainder of the way in which. Although Alexandersson was counted on as among the many race favorites, it was a shock how far forward she was. Behind her, Alonso and Lang battled for second and third forward of a bigger chase group.
Sara Alonso of Spain holding onto second place through the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Tove Alexandersson gained the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path race in 5:04. She was seventeenth general and ran solely about 8% slower than the lads’s winner in a world championships efficiency that may actually be remembered. In early September 2025, Alexandersson raced the CanfrancCanfranc Marathon on this similar course and completed in 5:39 regardless of an 18-minute medical cease for 5 stitches after a fall.
After an extended duel, Sara Alonso lastly completed second in 5:38, and Naomi Lang was third in 5:38, simply 39 seconds again.
Ida Amelie Robsahm (Norway) moved up within the race’s second half to complete fourth in 5:44 and Anna Plattner was fifth in 5:45.
Sweden took gold within the girls’s workforce race, with Spain and France taking second and third.
Naomi Lang of Nice Britain completed a detailed third on the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
2025 Path World Championships Brief Path Ladies’s Outcomes
- Tove Alexandersson (Sweden) – 5:04:20
- Sara Alonso (Spain) – 5:38:15
- Naomi Lang (Nice Britain) – 5:38:54
- Ida Amelie Robsahm (Norway) – 5:44:54
- Anna Plattner (Austria) – 5:45:40
- Clémentine Geoffray (France) – 5:46:28
- Jane Maus (U.S.) – 5:48:23
- Ikram Rharsalla (Spain) – 5:53:19
- Johanna Gelfgren (Sweden) – 5:56:41
- Barbora Bukovjan (Czech Republic) – 5:56:43
The 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path girls’s podium (left to proper): 2. Sara Alonso, 1. Tove Alexandersson, 3. Naomi Lang. Photograph: World Mountain and Path Operating Championships
2025 Path World Championships Brief Path Males’s Race
It was straight to the entrance for Andreu Blanes (Spain) at first. Many runners went fast off the road to achieve place earlier than an early singletrack climb restricted passing alternatives, however Blanes did greater than that and put a niche on everybody instantly. Davide Magnini (Italy) led the massive chase group on the opening climb’s decrease elements.
The chasing practice of males lastly gained Blanes 50 minutes into the race. Two-time defending champion Stian Angermund (Norway), Magnini, Eli Hemming (U.S.), Frédéric Tranchand (France), and Manuel Merillas (Spain) lined up behind chief Blanes as all have been climbing the still-first climb’s steeper stretches. The group lastly hit the course’s excessive level after 6.6k of distance and after over 1,400 meters of elevation achieve, and all simply over an hour into the race. Technical operating consultants Tranchand, Merillas, and Angermund gained some separation from the others on the downhill.
Tranchand got here into the 16k Canal Roya help station alone within the lead at 1:49. Merillas and Angermund have been in second and third and simply over a minute behind. Blanes held on in fourth and Daniel Pattis (Italy) was fifth. From there, runners climbed once more, this time to the excessive level of the day prior’s World Mountain Operating Championships Uphill race, and Tranchand maintained his result in the highest. The day’s two largest climbs have been performed, and Tranchand was nonetheless practically a minute in entrance of second-place Merillas.
Frédéric Tranchand of France leads the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path with solely a last climb and descent to go. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
The chase was on early into and all through the race’s second half, however Tranchand continued to steer and steadily added time on his hole to second-place Merillas. Angermund stayed third with fourth-place Pattis on his heels, however hassle was coming for each.
Over the second half’s two lesser climbs, Tranchand and Merillas stayed within the entrance, however Angermund fell again on the third climb, and Pattis did too. Blanes moved as much as third and Alain Santamaria (Spain) improbably jumped from method again to fourth. He was solely fifteenth on the high of the race’s second climb 12k earlier. Angermund would later drop from the race, and Pattis completed outdoors the highest 10.
Santamaria’s massive transfer wasn’t sufficient to shake up the rostrum, nonetheless.
Frédéric Tranchand gained the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path race in 4:42 after breaking away on the primary descent and being uncatchable the remainder of the way in which.
After chasing Tranchand down the early climb, Manuel Merillas was second for nearly all the race, and he completed in that place in 4:45.
Manuel Merillas of Spain was second on the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Andreu Blanes, who led the race’s early minutes, was third in 4:51.
Alain Santamaria was fourth in 4:55 and Marcin Kubica (Poland) rocketed downhill for fifth in 4:56.
Spain gained the lads’s workforce race, and France and Italy have been the second- and third-place groups.
[Stian Angermund served a 16-month doping ban after testing positive for the prohibited masking agent chlortalidone at the 2023 OCC race in France.]
Andreu Blanes ran to 3rd place on the 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path, placing three Spanish runners within the high 4. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
2025 Path World Championships Brief Path Males’s Outcomes
- Frédéric Tranchand (France) – 4:42:10
- Manuel Merillas (Spain) – 4:45:33
- Andreu Blanes (Spain) – 4:51:52
- Alain Santamaria (Spain) – 4:55:48
- Marcin Kubica (Poland) – 4:56:38
- Luca Del Pero (Italy) – 4:56:57
- Martin Nilsson (Sweden) – 4:57:09
- Davide Magnini (Italy) – 4:57:42
- Sylvain Cachard (France) – 4:58:23
- Lorenzo Rota Martir (Italy) – 4:58:54
The 2025 Path World Championships Brief Path males’s podium (left to proper): 2. Manuel Merillas, 1. Frédéric Tranchand, 3. Andreu Blanes. Photograph: World Mountain and Path Operating Championships
