Said Anna Ficner has dominated this traditional Warsaw race in the last decade and as defending champion from 2016 she also opened the first heat of the championship race with a fast 4:28. This should remain by far the fastest time by a female. Next and only other sub 5 was clocked in with 4:48 by a newcomer to the sport, Iwona Januszyk. The home athlete is a big name in international ski mountaineering and just a month ago finished her winter season winning the national championships. These two were the fastest in the 2nd heat too, Iwona a bit faster with a 5:15 to Anna’s 5:16.
The battle for the bronze medal was decided between Iwona Wicha from Poland, who led by 1 second after heat 1 and Czech Adela Vorackova, who was faster by 6 seconds in heat 2 and so took the podium spot. Adela is a first time stairer too, brought to the sport by her partner Tomas Macecek.
5th position went to Dominika Stelmach from Warsaw, who calls herself “versatile runner” and as European 100km record holder probably would have preferred to climb Rondo 1 ten times instead of a mere two ! Completing the price money ranks was Verena Schmitz from Germany in her first international race.
As it was Championships the idea was to make it as hard as possible and so after heat 1 there was no real recovery time allowed. Instead the ladies were invited into the elevator and the 2nd heat started only about 10 minutes after the first one. In fact the times of all athletes in the second heat were significantly slower and maybe it is a little consolation for Slovak Kamila Chomanicova on a suboptimal day, that her “positive split” of 13 seconds was the “best” !
