Dold and Bonacina lead VWC

Dold summits in Berlin. ©Roger SchorriesAfter New York, Basel, London and Taipei, the latest stop on the Vertical World Circuit® was the Berlin Sky Run – 770 steps up the 39 floors of the Park Inn Hotel. German Thomas Dold, 2009 and 2010 VWC champion, won Sunday’s event, his third outright win on this year’s VWC calendar, placing him at the head of the ranking.

Fresh from his win on the world’s second tallest building, the Taipei 101 only seven days ago, his time in Berlin was 3’37”90. Poland’s Piotr Lobodzinski was a close second (3’38”54) and third, German Matthias Jahn (3’39”676).

Dold’s strongest adversary, Italian mountain running champion Marco De Gasperi was absent, but many strong athletes competing in the Vertical World Circuit® were in the top ten: Ignazio Cardona (SPA) 4th, Thomas Celko (SVK) 5th, Pavel Holec (CZE) 7th and Xavier Teixidò (AND) 9th.

Local Sylvia Jacobs won the women’s category ahead of Austria’s Julia Evangelis and Kerstin Sewczyk. Italy’s Cristina Bonacina, 4th, maintains her VWC lead.

Cristina Bonacina and her FiveFingers®. ©Roger SchorriesCristina Bonacina, a member of the Vibram® Tester Team, wears the original FiveFingers® foot glove to scale the dizzy heights of some of the tallest skyscrapers across the globe where stamina, determination and technique go hand-in-hand with quality products – all the way to the top.

The next official race on the VWC Calendar heads Italy’s tallest building in Milan with the Vertical Sprint on September 25.

The 2011 Vertical World Circuit® unites some of the world’s most iconic skyscraper races in eight capitals across four continents. This year, trials have been introduced to further extend this compelling sport in another seven countries, from the Americas to the heart of Europe and the Far East.

Since 2010, vertical running, or skyscraper racing, is governed by the International Skyrunning Federation which has included this original new sport in its regulations. The federation is best known for skyrunning (high altitude mountain running) and many of the athletes compete in both disciplines – indoors and out!

See www.verticalrunning.org for rules, ranking and info.