The island of La Palma today hosted the Winter Transvulcania Vertical Kilometer® (VK) one of many VK’s in the 2018 Vertical Kilometer® World Circuit.

Just last weekend in Italy the Trentapassi Vertical, rising 1,000m above Italy’s Lake Iseo took place and many of the runners who participated followed up with the VK in La Palma.

To clarify, a VK is a uphill mountain race that climbs for 1,000m over a course that is less than 5 km in length. Certain courses on the circuit do obtain special dispensation – Transvulcania one case in point.

The route here in La Palma covers over 1200m of vertical gain over a distance of 7.6km and re-traces sections of the Ultramarathon course and concludes at the forest lookout tower at an altitude of 1600m and stunning views of the Aridane valley and the north east of the island.

From sea to sky, today in La Palma, the BBinter Transvulcania VK provided a wonderful showcase for the sport as runners departed from Tazacorte Puerto. However, the usual glorious skies of blue and intense sunshine were replaced with cloud, grey and at times, light rain.

The line-up for the VK was impressive with Stian Angermund, Pascal Egli, Aritz Egea and Ondrej Fejfar heading up a world-class field.

Pascal Egli dominated with a strong performance ahead of Stian Angermund-Vik and Rui Ueda. Their times 47:55, 48:03 and 48:08.

Christel Dewalle set blistering pace and set a new course record ahead of Laura Orgue and Zuzana Krchova. Their times 56:52, 57:19 and 1:01:13.

Attention now turns to the main event of the weekend, the Transvulcania Ultramarathon that starts in the early hours of the morning on Saturday at Fuencalienti lighthouse. You can read the race preview HERE.

Full set of race images available HERE