The 46th edition of the world’s most famous stair races surprised with two new winners !
We start chronologically with the male race. In the 2 years before the podium was the same with Malaysian Wai Ching Soh taking the title before Ryoji Watanabe from Japan and Italy’s Fabio Ruga. These three also lead the current ranking in that order and they all were at the starting line.
Wai Ching took the lead early and at floor 20 had a solid 10 second lead before timetied Fabio and Ryoji. But this changed dramatically to floor 65. Here Ryoji came first timetied with Wai Ching and Fabio already 24 seconds behind them. And then it was all Ryoji. The Japanese athlete stormed away from the Malaysian clocking a winning time of 10:34 at the top ! 22 seconds later Wai Ching crossed the finish line as runner up a mere 2 seconds before the Italian.After a “long” wait Omar Bekkali from Belgium finished 4th in 12:17 followed by the strong US Empire-veteran Sproule Love (12:54).

There was a complete different situation in the female race. In absence of an injured defending Champion Valentina Belotti as well as multiple winner Cindy Harris the outcome was very open.
At the split time at floor 20 there was a German double lead with last year runner up Verena Schmitz in 2:24 one second before Monica Carl. 5 seconds behind was Japanese Yuko Tateishi followed by Shari Klarfeld (USA) and another German runner, Cordula Galster, both with 2:33. Until the 65 floor intermediate the positions of the Top 6 were all settled and we saw a surprise victory of German mountain runner Monica Carl with a time of 13:30. 5 seconds behind Yuko finished as runner up while Verena completed the podium in 13:57. Exceptionally not Top3 this time followed Shari as fastest US athlete in 14:28. On 5th place and as 3rdbest German Cordula finished with 14:51 just a second apart from Andreza Diaferia from Brasil.

Thanks to the teams of ESB represented by Etan Levavi and SuperRaceSystems led by Justin Wingman-Kerr for organizing an exciting race for a record number of more than 560 participants !

Tense waiting

Monica Carl realizing her win

Ryoji & Wai Ching at the finish line

Debbie-Jason-Jump, a common sight at the races

Team Japan

Team Germany

Mostly Mexican happy finishers

Overview

Top 5 US athletes (credit Stairlife)